The stench of death in New Orleans and school reform.
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– By Corey Mitchell in EdWeek.
Billie Dolce’s memories of her final day as a teacher at Colton Middle School haunt her.
With Hurricane Katrina headed toward New Orleans, Dolce pleaded with her classroom aide, Gertrude Hackett, to flee the city and seek refuge with out-of-town relatives.
“Ms. Hackett, if they say evacuate, evacuate. Don’t stay here by yourself,” Dolce recalls telling her. “She said, ‘I won’t, Ms. Dolce, I won’t.’ ”
Hackett never made it out.
First responders found the 70-year-old submerged in water at the wheel of her car, her luggage packed in the trunk.
It was the first funeral Dolce attended after the storm.
But it wouldn’t be the last.
She saw former colleagues, parents, and students buried, casualties of the catastrophic storm and levee breaches that flooded the city.
“People’s hearts were broken,” Dolce says. “All this time later, some people still can’t stand when it rains hard and the wind blows.”
A decade later, the pain and symbolism are as profound for Dolce as they were in the storm’s fresh wake.
“Death sticks out to me,” the former special education teacher says. “Death from the The stench of death in New Orleans and school reform. | Fred Klonsky: