By Morgann Rhule | MediaLab@FAU
Dec 19, 2024
Hurricane season may be over, but its impact lingers far beyond the debris lining the roads. In Palm Beach County, students lost six school days due to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, leaving teachers and students struggling to recover the lost instructional time.
While the hurricanes did not cause significant damage to Palm Beach County, as they did on Florida's western coast, Milton's strong winds spawned tornadoes in Wellington. These destructive twisters brought down power lines, shattered windows, and caused structural damage to homes.
Schools in Palm Beach County closed for Hurricane Helene on Thursday, Sept. 25, and resumed classes the following Monday. For Hurricane Milton, schools shut down on Wednesday, Oct. 9, and remained closed until Tuesday, Oct. 15. As Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw put it at a press conference assessing the damage after the tornadoes blew through: “It looks like a war zone. It was like an atomic bomb blowing up.”
At Palm Beach Central High School in Wellington, students and teachers are still grappling with the effects of the missed school days. The disruption has left many scrambling to catch up on lessons and prepare for upcoming exams.
“In comparison to last year, I am definitely behind, which does worry me a little,” said Alexandre Cordeiro, who is teaching AP Pre-Calculus for the second year.
Cordeiro wasn’t given a schedule by the College Board, the organization responsible for administering AP exams, for keeping students on track before the exam. However, he and other teachers planned a curriculum to cover all the necessary material.
“It is a day-by-day thing,” he said about the schedule. “So when a curveball gets thrown at us, things like hurricanes, be it for random activities, testing, it just cuts into the review time per se towards the end.”
Hermione Joseph-Orelas is a science educator at Palm Beach Central who teaches a challenging AICE Marine Biology course. She, too, had to adjust her lesson plans.
“I had to go back and work my calendar,” said Joseph-Orelas. “I had to backtrack in order to try to catch up with the scope and sequence, but I am four days behind.”
The scramble to adjust her schedule has impacted Joseph-Orelas and taken a toll on her students.
“The way that my students learn has been a little bit more difficult because they’re trying to catch up, and I’m moving a little bit too fast so I can do what the district would like me to accomplish by the end of the school year.”
This challenge highlights a larger issue: missed instructional time can have long-term consequences. According to the Florida Department of Education, districts consider students who miss 10% of their classes to be at risk of not meeting their grade level expectations. Between hurricanes Helene and Milton, students missed 5%, almost 50 hours of learning.
Students along the Southeast have faced even greater challenges. In Asheville, North Carolina, an area where damage was devastating, schools remained closed for a month following the impact.
While it's expected that schools may have a few days off due to hurricanes, this disruption still presents challenges. The fall semester plays a pivotal role in shaping the rest of the school year, laying the groundwork for the more intensive learning that follows in the spring.
“Something else to consider is that the fall semester is a lot more difficult than the spring because there's already more holidays,” said Claire Gacel, a senior education major at Florida Atlantic University.
“So the fall is the beginning of the year, and it’s really challenging, but all those days off just make it that much more challenging.”
Teachers aren’t shy about expressing the concerns they face. They openly communicate with their students about the difficulties of catching up and the pressure of making up for lost time.
“They [teachers] did,” said Alayna Garland, a sophomore at Palm Beach Central, about how her teachers reacted to the pressures of missing crucial educational periods. “Some of them had noted that we were going to be long behind because of the hurricane, and we had missed a week of school.”
“Chemistry, AP Bio, math definitely,” said Garland about the subjects in which her teachers addressed the challenges. “And AICE English because my teacher has this whole schedule of when she wants everything to be done, so the hurricane kind of threw everything off.”
This open communication, while necessary, has heightened students’ awareness of the stakes and amplified the urgency to perform, adding even more pressure.
“One of my friends in AP bio was kind of stressed out because we were getting more work, and before the hurricane, she was already behind, so she had a lot of work to do for that class,” Garland added.
With the fall semester already setting the tone for the rest of the year, the pressure to stay on track is higher than ever. However, the reality is clear: the disrupted school schedules have affected academic progress. As teachers continue to battle against time, students, too, are feeling the strain. The road to recovery may be long, but for now, it’s all about managing what’s left of the school year and preparing for exams.
