HOUSTON – Schools across Houston ISD are dealing with high grass and fallen trees as students head back to school.
One of the schools most impacted is John J. Herrera Elementary School on Houston’s Northside.
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Melissa Cruz has two children who go there and said there’s been debris ever since the derecho. Hurricane Beryl only made the situation worse.
“It’s been hard to get it picked up. This area...we’re overlooked and left behind sometimes,” she said. “I feel like this all should have been cleaned up for the kids to feel welcomed. The kids can’t really play.”
KPRC 2 heard similar complaints from parents at T.H. Rogers Elementary School.
“HISD has not been maintaining landscaping,” said one parent. He said the community has taken it upon themselves to address the issue. “Parents are volunteering to clean and mow.”
On August 8, HISD issued a response, which said in part, “The schedule for grounds maintenance on several campuses was heavily delayed due to the unprecedented amount of rainfall and severe weather conditions in our area over the last several weeks. Our Facilities, Maintenance, and Operations crews have also been working hard on Hurricane Beryl recovery, which has impacted our grounds maintenance schedule from its normal 15-21 days between lawn service.”
HISD also said they were, “committed to ensuring each campus is properly maintained and ready for August 12.”
As of August 13, debris is still surrounding several HISD schools.
KPRC 2′s Corley Peel asked HISD Superintendent Mike Miles about the landscaping issues at Tuesday’s press conference.
“We’re thankful for any community members who have helped out,” Miles said, stressing that the district’s maintenance team has been overwhelmed.
“Keep in mind...we lost most of July. Not only was there a derecho, and we had to get rid of that debris, then there was a hurricane, and we had to get rid of that debris. We had to move trees. Even the city has not moved all the debris. There’s debris everywhere because it’s a large district.”
Miles said the debris has been piled up and moved out of harm’s way, and that the maintenance staff had been able to cut all the grass prior to Monday. Footage KPRC 2 took this morning at John J. Herrera Elementary appears to contradict this claim.
Miles insists that the district is doing all it can.
“We feel pretty comfortable that the schools look fairly well. Give us some time and we’ll be able to get them back to normal.”