HISD is beefing up its law enforcement in response to some high-profile incidents involving Katrina evacuee-students:
HISD students will come back to class after the holidays to safer schools.
The school district announced Wednesday it has hired more police officers to help keep order in 18 schools with larger numbers of evacuees from Hurricane Katrina. HISD will increase the police presence in schools by about 10 percent to start 2006 as the district continues to educate more than 6,000 New Orleans area residents who fled Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina.
Most Katrina evacuees have worked and learned alongside the Houston students without incident. The total number of disciplinary incidents in HISD schools is actually down 12 percent this school year compared to last year. But there have been about a dozen significant altercations between evacuees and regular Houston students, and Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra said he wants more police manpower in the schools to keep a watchful eye on the situation.
“Our visitors from Louisiana are getting a good education in Houston, and we’ve heard a lot from parents about how much their children are learning here,” Dr. Saavedra said. “We’re very proud of how our schools have opened up their doors to these children who are in need. At the same time, there have been some disruptions and we will continue to deal swiftly and decisively with those. We will not tolerate disruptions and we won’t allow the education of other children to be interrupted.”
In addition to off-duty Houston Police Department officers who have been hired for 18 secondary schools to work alongside HISD police officers, HISD has coordinated with other local law enforcement agencies to increase patrols around some schools before and after school and during lunch time. The district also will step up random drug and weapons searches by canine units.
The police presence is being increased at Kashmere, Sterling, Jones, Lee, Madison, Westbury, Yates, Sharpstown, Scarborough, and Westside high schools, and at Black, Dowling, Revere, Fondren, Long, Sharpstown, Westbriar and Welch middle schools.
The HISD Police Department also will form a five-member task force that can respond to emergency situations anywhere in the 305-school district.
Maybe after school is out, HISD police officers can help Houston police officers at crime-prone apartment buildings.
