- Betsy DeVos at Summer Creek High School auto shop on radiators and transmissions for Dodge Ram trucks. (Photo Credit: Laura Isensee | Houston Public Media)
- Betsy DeVos at Summer Creek High School auto shop on radiators and transmissions for Dodge Ram trucks. (Photo Credit: Laura Isensee | Houston Public Media)
- Betsy DeVos officially arrived st Humble ISD Summer Creek, gets a lesson on how to make sopapilla cheesecake. (Photo Credit: Laura Isensee | Houston Public Media)
- Humble ISD culinary students prepping sopapilla cheesecake for Betsy DeVos. (Photo Credit: Laura Isensee | Houston Public Media)
- Betsy DeVos tours gym at Humble ISD where Harvey dumped several feet of water. (Photo Credit: Laura Isensee | Houston Public Media)
- More than 2000 Kingwood HS students are doubling up at Summer Creek HS due to Harvey damage. (Photo Credit: Laura Isensee | Houston Public Media)
More than two months since Hurricane Harvey made landfall and shut down schools for more than one million Texas children, the nation’s top education administrator made a second visit to the state.
On the tour, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made three stops, one in Port Aransas, which was hit hard by the hurricane, and two stops in Humble, northeast of Houston, where severe flooding devastated Kingwood High School.
Kingwood’s nearly 3,000 students are doubling up shifts at Summer Creek High School, while the Humble school district spends over $67 million to repair the damaged campus by March. Students are expected to return then to finish out the year.
During her visit to Summer Creek High, DeVos checked out sopapilla cheesecake students prepared in a culinary arts class and visited with teenagers working on Dodge Ram radiators and transmissions in auto shop.
Then she toured ongoing repairs at Kingwood High, which took on several feet of water and where commercial dryers still blow.
DeVos told reporters that she’s impressed with the “creativity” and “flexibility” in recovery efforts in Texas.
But the doubled shifts and repairs aren’t enough relief for many Texas educators.
The Houston Federation of Teachers as well as several local superintendents have pressed state and federal officials to relax testing and accountability for storm-affected schools this year, because Harvey disrupted the lives of so many students and teachers.
DeVos said that she’s committed to working with state leaders to help students succeed but didn’t say if accountability should be relaxed.