As if the challenges weren’t great enough, recent reports nationally and internationally suggest that New Orleans continues to face extraordinary uphill battles in re-building their schools (and hiring teachers, although TeachNOLA seems to be offering an innovative program to draw passionate teachers and teachers-to-be down to the city).

From a recent eSchool News story:

A year and a half after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, destroying schools and displacing students, school leaders are still struggling to rebuild damaged facilities and technology infrastructures.

In January, members of the Hurricane Education Leadership Program (HELP) Team–a coalition of ed-tech companies and organizations that is helping to rebuild Gulf Coast schools as 21st-century learning facilities–took a tour of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and were surprised by what they saw.

“[We were] stunned at the lack of progress in getting recovery to these folks,” said Terry Smithson, education strategist for Intel Corp. and leader of the HELP Team. “In some places, it still looks like a bomb has gone off.”

Note: Check out this video of Terry Smithson talking about the efforts of HELP, and then watch Part 2 and Part 3, as well. Also thought we’d highlight an eSchool News special supplement highlighting the HELP team’s efforts — also worth checking out.

Having had the opportunity to connect with Terry in the past, and hearing him discuss his decision to commit to helping New Orleans’ schools rebuild through the HELP (Hurricane Education Leadership Project) team, I am pleased to see that they are keeping an eye on his perspective. He’s a remarkably visionary/optimistic leader in the field, so if he’s stunned…it’s not an over-exaggeration.

Fortunately, teams like Steven Bingler/Bobbie Hill’s Concordia Architecture and Planning are also involved in helping to not only ‘rebuild’ the city, but to also ensure that the city’s learning environments remain community-based and innovative.

DesignShare is happy to be publishing an upcoming article by Steven centered on the idea of the community “Nexus” that will certainly offer some striking ideas for all of us concerned with the city’s future. And also how community learning centers as a “nexus” of learning resources can be integrated in cities/towns far and wide.