FEMA provides $1.8 billion to rebuild New Orleans schools

From The New Orleans Times-Picayune: Five years after Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans public schools have received a $1.8 billion grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to build or renovate about 85 schools. The grant bundles the school systems’ extensive Katrina damage into one large project, rather than using a building-by-building accounting. The lump sum approach enables the school system to place new structures where they are most needed, without being restricted to rebuilding what was there before. Since the hurricane, most students have been housed in campuses composed entirely of portable classrooms or in aging buildings that were already crumbling before Katrina. The long-awaited FEMA grant means that every school will rebuilt or substantially renovated.