Victims of our own system among other things

Evacuated Children Begin Attending School
School Supplies Needed For New Students
POSTED: 7:19 am CDT September 7, 2005
UPDATED: 7:40 am CDT September 7, 2005

SAN ANTONIO -- Public school officials in San Antonio are scrambling to find space in already crowded classrooms for hundreds of evacuated children from the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast region.
At least 200 evacuated children enrolled in local school districts Friday. Officials said they expect at least 1,000 children to attend classrooms in San Antonio, putting a strain on districts that already have limited resources.
"You don't want to shortchange the new kids," said Terry Smith, of the Texas Education Center. "You don't want to shortchange the ones already here."
City officials are working with school districts to decide whether to educate the evacuees in the classroom or in shelters.
In addition to finding space for the new students, school supplies are also needed. Most of the evacuated children left their homes with nothing.
Communities In Schools, a local education agency, is asking the public to donate school supplies for the new students.
Pens, pencils, paper, glue, backpacks, school uniforms and underwear are needed to help make the children's transition to school a smooth process.
"Once they start school that's brand new to them, it's going to be traumatic," said Nancy Reed, of Communities In Schools. "Besides all the other things they have gone through. We want them to have an easy adjustment as possible."
Donations can be dropped off at Communities In Schools at 1616 East Commerce Street at Building One from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
The supplies will be issued to the students through the school districts they are assigned to.

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We are tying to help but we are running out of space at the same time. The sad thing is, that before we can move on anything in this country there has to be too many approvals and they move too slow.
Many people criticize Bush because he didn't act fast enough. Well, having the government system that we do prevents the president from making decisions by himself. He should just declare Marshall Law and go into the affected states and take over, but then he would be criticized for that to. Citizens would not like for the military to take over the whole operation and the governors and majors will probably would not be happy to lose control either.
At this point everyone has their opinion on how to do the job. Well, we are not presidents and if we wanted to be we would be preparing for it. Everyone can bitch about how they have done a nasty job but fact of the matter is that we can't change the past and we should just concentrate in helping as much as we can. We need to stop pointing fingers and start donating and volunteering.
I will probably be at Kelly USA on Saturday helping to take care of all the people from New Orleans that are now here at San Antonio, Texas. There is a great need for donations and organizing all the items that come in as donations everyday. They also need help by keeping the place clean, assisting with medical aid, and taking care of the kids that are too young to go to school. These people are not statistics or just numbers to throw in Bush's face. They are real and they are now needed our help from every corner of this country.
For more information you can contact the Red Cross here in San Antonio, Texas.