The Hidden Cost: How Hurricanes Hit Black Students Harder

In 2017, Christina Boyd-Patterson was a high school senior when the remnants of Hurricane Irma — a Category 5 storm when it hit Texas — swept through Jacksonville, Florida, where she lived and went to school. The storm inundated her city, forcing schools to shut down for weeks.“I know the hurricane affected everyone at my school just as much as me, but it was a lot,” Boyd-Patterson tells Word in Black. Among other things, she fell behind on college applications, but “at least I didn’t have to repeat a year, like some of my classmates did.”Data, including a recent government report, highlights the problems Patterson, now 25, faced.From mental health challenges to prolonged school closures, Black students whose lives and education are disrupted by devastating weather events face greater obstacles in the aftermath, issues that widen existing inequities in education.According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, most school districts that received disaster recovery funds between 2017 and 2019 served high proportions of socially vulnerable students. Districts with large numbers of Black and Brown students, the report states, require significantly more recovery assistance than those with less vulnerable populations.But studies also show vulnerable Black communities often receive less financial support for...