Hurricane Education Recovery Act

On December 30, 2005, the President signed the Hurricane Education Recovery Act. This law authorizes three new grant programs to assist school districts and schools in meeting the educational needs of students displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and in helping schools that were closed as a result of the hurricanes to reopen as quickly and effectively aspossible. These programs are as follows:

• Emergency Impact Aid for Displaced Students – Provides assistance to local educational agencies (LEAs) for the cost of educating students enrolled in public and nonpublic schools that were displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita during the 2005-06 school year. Congress has appropriated $645 million to cover displaced students across the country including those displaced within Louisiana.
• Immediate Aid to Restart School Operations – Provides funds to Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Alabama to provide assistance or services to LEAs and non-public schools to help defray expenses related to the restart of operations in, the reopening of, and the re-enrollment of students in schools that serve an area in which a major disaster has been declared related to Hurricanes Katrina or Rita. Congress has appropriated a total of $750 million for the Restart Program across the four states. Louisiana has been allocated $100 million to begin the distribution of these funds. Final allocations to Louisiana will consider the number of students who were enrolled in affected schools during the 2004-05 school year, and were closed on September 12, 2005 as a result of Hurricane Katrina and October 7, 2005 as a result of Hurricane Rita.
• Assistance for Homeless Youth – Provides a separate source of funding to SEAs to address the needs of homeless students displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The department will use data on displaced public school students collected under the Emergency Impact Aid program to make allocations under the McKinney - Vento Homeless Assistance Act.