New Orleans facing months without kids

NEW ORLEANS — Even after the latest hurricane crisis eases, and downtown businesses along with French Quarter topless bars reopen, life in New Orleans will be far from normal. Among the somber distinctions: For months to come this will be an almost childless city.

Dozens of schools were irreparably damaged by Hurricane Katrina, and only a handful are expected to open before January. Few day-care centers will be available for preschoolers, and health experts warn that children are at extra risk of contamination if they come back before the city is thoroughly cleaned of the foul floodwater's residue.

"It's a big concern of ours," said the Rev. William Maestri, superintendent of the city's Roman Catholic schools. "We want our families back."

Until they do return, a whole sector of the economy will be in limbo — not only child-care workers and teachers but also pediatricians, owners of child-oriented stores and others. Numerous New Orleans teachers, faced with payroll problems and no work in their home city, are getting hired elsewhere.

By the tens of thousands, New Orleans' children are scattered around the United States and are enrolling in schools. Many of their parents want to return home when conditions allow, but many others say they may settle in their new locations, almost certainly producing a significant drop in New Orleans' population of children.

Arthur Johnson, a lifetime New Orleans resident, said one of his adult daughters evacuated and placed her four children in Texas public schools, where they were faring better than in their hometown school.

"We have bad schools here," he said. "We've been knowing that for years."

But Michelle Bailey, a hospital worker who evacuated with her three children to Houston, said she wanted to bring her family back to New Orleans.

"My kids can't go to school now," she said. "Last week they went and a big fight broke out."

New Orleans officials hope to open a few schools Nov. 1 on the West Bank, a section of the city relatively unscathed by Katrina. But the school board president, Torin Sanders, said a broader reopening in the main part of the city probably wouldn't occur until January — and even that would involve only a limited number of the 126 public schools.

The plan, he indicated, would be to open certain schools that suffered little damage, accommodating returning students even if they lived in other neighborhoods.

Sanders said the widely criticized school system, which served 60,000 students, could benefit in the long term.