Private schools accepting displaced Katrina students

“It just happened immediately,” said 15-year-old Teresa Castellon of New Orleans, who’s now attending the Webb School in Bell Buckle after her school was closed because of Katrina. “They’re just really welcoming and accepting.”

Many of the students are from Gulf Coast private schools, but some of the Tennessee schools are also taking evacuees from public schools.

According to the state Department of Education, about 390 students have enrolled in the dozen or so schools that have reported their numbers.

At least 50 private schools in Tennessee — including the 22 Catholic elementary, middle and high schools in the Midstate — have expressed a willingness to help.

“Even though we don’t know these people, we know these people. We are these people,” said Jiim McIntyre, principal of the 955-student Father Ryan High school, which has 20 displaced students. “They have been displaced, but they have found a home.”

The high school is waiving its $6,880 tuition, the $350 activity fee and the $400 to $600 in books for students it simply calls “transfers.”

Private schools don’t fall under the federal law that requires public schools to immediately enroll displaced students and give them busing, free meals and any required services. However, many private schools are still going the extra mile anyway.

“We couldn’t sit quietly and do nothing,” said Albert Cauz, headmaster of Webb School, which is waiving its $29,500 room and board for up to 30 students. “We felt a need to reach out,”

The private schools that do reach out are filling a huge need because the four Louisiana parishes hardest hit by the storm had an above-average number of students enrolled in private school. They had 61,000 of the 187,000 students there, or roughly 32 percent of students in kindergarten through grade 12, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Shane Persich, 17, said his New Orleans school, Brother Martin High, is underwater and he appreciates being able to go to Father Ryan.

“I like it a lot but sometimes after class you get a little lonely,” he said, “and you want to go home, but then you don’t want to be home.”

Many displaced students who enroll in private and public schools don’t have access to their medical or academic records so counselors have to help them reconstruct their transcripts and find classes they need to graduate.

“We don’t know if they’re going to be here one week, two weeks or a year,” said Connie Hansom, Father Ryan’s director of admission, who assigns two student ambassadors to help each displaced student. “We do whatever we can do to make them feel a part.”

Olivia Milton, a sophomore at Father Ryan, will soon return to Covington, La., because her all-girls Catholic high school is reopening and taking in students from surrounding high schools. Milton said the way she was treated at Father Ryan has motivated her to help displaced students who transfer into her high school back home.

“I’ll get to return the favor,” the 15-year-old said.