LSU Education Professor Recounts How Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Influenced Her Literary Access Research

LSU Professor Margaret-Mary Sulentic Dowell, PhD, is revisiting her research, conducted in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, that provided students access to literature and prepared pre-service teachers to teach authentically in a time of widespread devastation.

Sulentic Dowell, now a professor in LSU’s Lutrill & Pearl Payne School of Education, served from 2002 to 2006 as the assistant superintendent of 64 elementary schools in the East Baton Rouge Parish School System (EBRPSS), a district that gained about 9,000 new students after Katrina and Rita.

Her unique position within the school system inspired her to capture her experiences through autoethnography, a research method where researchers turn the lens on themselves and use their personal encounters to understand larger phenomena.

Dedication & Compassion

“As a high-level district administrator, I wanted to capture that experience,” Sulentic Dowell said. “Katrina and its aftermath shaped me as a teacher, researcher, and learner. As a result, I delved into autoethnography and life histories, qualitative research traditions that are seemingly less utilized.”

Her findings? EBRPSS, a district with a typical enrollment of 46,000 before Katrina, became the largest school district in the state overnight, exceeding the maximum district enrollment.

Temporary classrooms were created out of auditoriums and storage spaces. District satellite offices were built. And new evacuee enrollment processes were created to address the influx of students into EBRPSS schools. By October of that year, 9,435 new students had entered the EBRPSS system. 

That created a long list of vital operations needed to educate every one of EBRPSS’ students, including:

• meeting the new and great demand for more teachers and staff,
• coordinating student placements while adhering to the McKinney-Vento Act,
• locating resources for evacuees,
• making students feel welcome in their new schools,
• meeting the emotional needs of both students and educators,
• and systemically dealing with donations to the area.

Sulentic Dowell and EBRPSS made sure each of these essential needs was met in the 2005-06 school year through dedication, compassion, persistence, and teamwork.

An Opportunity to Make a Difference

After working through the new and unknown challenges that Katrina and Rita dealt EBRPSS, Sulentic Dowell returned to the higher education classroom in 2006, this time to LSU, where she began preparing the next generation of educators, not only to teach, but to lead with authenticity.

Sulentic Dowell used the new post-Katrina and Rita world as an opportunity for undergraduate education students to engage with service-learning by preparing classroom libraries for an impacted charter school left with no access to books in New Orleans East.

“I also lost my home, four cars, and much of what I owned during Katrina, so in a very real sense, providing for others while instructing pre-service teachers was like a salve to me.”

— Margaret-Mary Sulentic Dowell

That work was based on research on literacy leadership; providing access to literature, writing, and the arts; and service-learning as a pathway to preparing pre-service teachers to teach literacy authentically in urban settings.

“I also lost my home, four cars, and much of what I owned during Katrina, so in a very real sense, providing for others while instructing pre-service teachers was like a salve to me,” Sulentic Dowell said. “Helping others helped me heal and fit my perspective as a servant-leader.

“After Katrina, with schools shuttered and public libraries destroyed, it became clear to me that I could provide access to books by establishing classroom libraries while involving preservice teachers in compiling those libraries. For me, this was an opportune circumstance to connect research with service.”

Students at this New Orleans East school received books that would empower their educations through this tumultuous time, and pre-service teachers gained hands-on experience preparing them for teaching literacy in urban classrooms, a mutually beneficial, community engagement, service learning project.

With the help of promotional posters, a website, word of mouth from other education professors and a school-wide service project at the University Lab School, donations of new and gently used books poured in, and these pre-service teachers actively began sorting books for different grade levels.

The process of sorting allowed for pre-service teachers to discuss what literature they thought was appropriate for certain age groups, exercising knowledge they learned from their classes and personal experiences.

In the spring of 2008, after persistent requests, Sulentic Dowell’s second cohort of pre-service teachers made the trip to New Orleans East to deliver their carefully selected classroom libraries.

Approximately 1,000 books were brought to the school on this day, and pre-service teachers spent the day with the New Orleans East elementary students they had spent so much time considering during their school year.

“This research confirmed my belief that authentic experiences help shape preservice teacher pedagogical practices and identities,” Sulentic Dowell said. “Most of my undergrads came from New Orleans, so they had a great deal of empathy for providing access to books. Because they also experienced loss, they were keen to provide to those who also lost.”

At the end of the 2007-2008 academic year, almost 9,000 books were donated, and a classroom library was established in every grade level in a New Orleans East charter school.

Inspiration for Educators

After leaving her class and going on to become teachers, many of Sulentic Dowell’s students expressed gratitude for the book project via email. Former students asked Sulentic Dowell how to gain support from administration to hold similar classroom library donation drives, and one student even expressed how the project inspired her to relocate her family to New Orleans and teach in an urban classroom environment.

Twenty years later, Sulentic Dowell continues to use these experiences to shape educators, from teachers to district-level administrators, into leaders by emphasizing the need for educators to be resilient, flexible, and compassionate.

One of her publications resulted in a blueprint for disaster response, a blueprint that has become more significant with the passage of time.

“My sense is that Katrina reminded teachers and school leaders of the need to understand their students’ lives, the communities, and families from where they come, and what has impacted them,” Sulentic Dowell said. “Teaching and leading are relational – they are not simply about delivering content or managing.”

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