TEA News

Totaling More than $50 Million
Disaster Relief Awarded For Texas Schools

Federal officials in December announced more than $50.8 million in disaster-related funding will be made available to Texas schools in the form of two grants.

U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced (Dec. 19) that the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) will award a $25,445,162 million federal grant to TEA to aid recovery efforts by schools affected by recent flooding in the Rio Grande Valley, Southeast Texas and Houston.

The funds were awarded under the USDE’s Immediate Aid to Restart School Operations program and are intended to help schools resume operations after a natural disaster.

Possible usage of the funds may include restoration of the learning environment, including minor repairs to classrooms, replacement of instructional materials and tutoring programs for students to make up for lost instructional time. Additional reporting: McAllen Monitor

Details at press time from the TEA about the distribution of the funding were pending.

Separately, Humble ISD announced in December that it has secured a $25.4 million Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant to provide all but $3 million of $28 million to complete a flood mitigation project to protect Kingwood High School from future flooding.

The school was heavily damaged during 2017’s Hurricane Harvey, forcing closure of the campus for most of School Year 2017-18 while repairs costing $63 million were completed. Last May, after the Harvey renovations were completed, the school suffered some floodwater damage due to a brief, but intense storm.

Preliminary architectural plans under consideration call for, among other things, flood gates that would “float” up, without electricity, at school entrances when heavy rainfall occurs.

The project’s completion date is targeted for 2022.