KINGWOOD, Texas – In addition to homes and businesses all over the Houston area, Hurricane Harvey also took a toll on several area schools, leaving some in such bad shape that they'll likely be closed for the entire school year.
One such district is Humble Independent School District, which held a special meeting Tuesday to discuss consolidating two high schools.
District leaders are expected to discuss the final plans for thousands of students displaced by Harvey.
The issue at hand is the nearly 2,800 students from Kingwood High School who are now set to attend Summer Creek High School.
Relocating Kingwood High students was necessary because their school was so badly damaged by Harvey that it will be shut down for the entire school year for repairs.
The district weighed a handful of options and sought parent input.
In the end, district leaders made some adjustments to their options and are expected to move forward with having both sets of students attend half-day sessions Monday through Friday.
School will be in session for Summer Creek students in the morning while Kingwood students will be in class during the afternoon.
Some parents have expressed concerns about a reduction in time their students will be in the classroom compared with a normal school year.
It's something the board likely discussed during itsmeeting.
"I'm really concerned that they're cutting the instruction time in half ... . (For) gifted students this might be perfectly fine for them, but other students it might not be, and I kinda think that they're not thinking of how much class time or face time with teacher(s) that those kids are losing," parent Peggy Jammer said.
"The thing we'd love to have is every single student to have that full-day experience every single day. It's just not an option to us right now when you take 2,700 students, one of our largest high schools, and displace them completely. It's been a very challenging difficult sort of Rubik's Cube situation that you have to figure out," Humble ISD Superintendent Elizabeth Fagen said.
Both high schools are set to start class on Monday.
