Storm brains allow at-home learning.

Hurricane Ivan hit Pensacola, Fla.--hard. Every school in the district of Escambia County was damaged, and students missed 19 days this fall. But thanks to quick actions from administrators, the community newspaper and even Gov. Jeb Bush, students received six editions of a stand-alone Newspaper In Education supplement to keep them occupied.

Administrators thought, "We need to keep students actively involved intellectually and cognitively," explains Paul Fetsko, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. Educators also hoped to divert children's attentions away from the devastation. "We didn't want families to just see this debris pile growing day by day.... It was a sense of normalcy in a time of pure chaos."

Less than a week after the storm, eight curriculum specialists were on task, working eight to 10 hours a day, at first with no computers or air conditioning. "It wasn't ideal. It was a very stressful situation, but so far everybody has their hair," reports M'ache England, administrative secretary to Linda Longacre, the district's director of staff development and curriculum training.

Because of a long-standing Newspaper in Education relationship with the Pensacola News Journal, the team had some content. "But then to design something that was appropriate for each grade level and do that six times within an 11-day period was rather miraculous," Fetsko says. Some topics, such as traffic flow during evacuations and local cleanup efforts, relate directly to the storm's impact.

Getting the papers, titled Survivin' Ivan School, to families meant culling addresses from the district's student database. Gov. Bush put a call in to the postal service to get next-day mail delivery.

Besides core subject and character education lessons, the editions contained parent tips, an answer key and community help numbers. A telephone hotline for parent assistance with the lessons was also included. Regular staffers from the district's hospital/homebound program fielded calls.

When students finally returned to school, individual principals and teachers made decisions about credit for completed work. At the district offices, everyone is all the wiser about handling continuous learning in times of catastrophic incidents. "Teachers are always expected to have a folder for substitute teachers," Fetsko says. "We may have to look at something like that instructionally--not just busy work but something really related to standards." He suggests that other districts--whether they're in a hurricane, tornado, earthquake, forest tire or snowstorm zone--do the same.

Costs of "Survivin' Ivan"

* Six issues (15 or 24 pages each)

* 39,000 print run (including 5,000 extras, for parents with multiple children, teachers who request a copy and displaced families)

* Approximately $36,000 per issue to print and mail

* $14,000 of that cost donated by Pensacola News Journal