Post-Katrina lessons for Harvey's returning students

Bryan McMillian was supposed to start college Aug. 28 at Prairie View A&M University, near Houston. Now, the apartment he had lined up in nearby Cypress, Texas, is flooded, and he’s trying to figure out if he can take online classes for a semester while he stays with some family in Austin.

Harvey wasn’t the first hurricane to disrupt his educational journey. Katrina hit on what would have been his first day of first grade in New Orleans. His family spent two years in Houston before they made their way back to Louisiana.

Now, six schools and innumerable life lessons later, this is what he’d say to a child displaced in Texas or, now, Florida: “Don’t let it get you down…. I know that this hurricane has caused damage…, but use this as the fuel to send you to even higher thinking and higher learning.”

He and the many adults tasked

Staggered start datesOut of struggle, creative solutionsA mixture of hardship and hopeRemember the teachers, too