Washington — As states and territories recover and rebuild from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria and Nate, the U.S. Department of Education continues to provide assistance to the impacted students, schools and institutions. On Friday Oct. 6, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos visited two impacted schools in southern Florida—Everglades City School in Everglades City and Pinecrest Elementary in Immokalee—to speak with students and hear directly from teachers and administrators about their communities' recovery efforts and needs.

"Witnessing the destruction brought by these hurricanes is heart-breaking, but it is even more heartening to see the resilience shown by those seeking to rebuild," said Secretary DeVos. "As these communities continue to return to normality, I am committed to reducing bureaucratic red-tape so that those affected can get the relief they need expeditiously."

On Sept. 22, the Department of Education released new non-regulatory guidance to help Department grantees and program participants remove barriers to restoring teaching and learning environments and to expediting the recovery process for all those impacted by the recent hurricanes.

The following are further updates on the Department's relief actions:

• The Department has provided all guidance and relief information in Spanish online.
• The Department continues to maintain active and ongoing communications with state and local elementary and secondary school system officials, charter school associations and private schools in the impacted states and territories.
• The office of Federal Student Aid has established and maintains communication with all 965 affected institutions of higher education.