Education Week - November 6, 2013 - 14

Recession's Impact Still Playing Out in Nation's Schools
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hotels and motels, and those without
any kind of shelter at all have
increased since 2009.
In Mobile County, the family
and social safety nets that traditionally
protected families in
trouble have been strained by
prolonged financial problems.
"We're seeing more and more
families living in hotels and motels,
and we had not seen that before,"
Ms. Dickinson said. "With
the economic hardships, people
are not being able to find jobs.
So families who might have been
able to take in other families at
another time, they can't now because
they are barely scraping by
themselves."
As a study by the Atlantabased
Southern Education
Foundation reported last month,
students in poverty make up majorities
of public school students
in 17 states, including Alabama.
Reasons for Leaving
"With economic hardship, families
are giving their children up or
placing them with different family
members," Ms. Dickinson said.
"And domestic violence is becoming
more common, so students are
also leaving home for that reason,
too."
Catherine Brakel, now 18, was
15 and a sophomore at Alma Bryant
High School in Irvington, Ala.,
in 2009, when her mother and
stepfather both lost their jobs and
the family started moving frequently.
Ms. Brakel got a job at a
local Waffle House restaurant to
help out-but also, she recalled,
started fighting more often with
her stepfather. "Me and my stepdad
had a lot of problems, so I just
moved out when I was 16," she
said. The state's age of majority is
19, so even with a steady job, Ms.
Brakel couldn't sign a lease, buy a
car, or do more than tread water.
"I didn't want anybody to know,
because it was embarrassing to
me and I thought I could do everything
myself," she said. "I really
didn't have time to go to football
games or participate in the
things everyone else participated
in, because I didn't have any free
time at all."
Her basketball coach finally
took notice of Ms. Brakel's situation
late in her junior year, when
she moved from one friend's
home to another but still needed
regular rides after practice.
"I was living with a friend in
Theodore [a neighboring town],
but it was too far away and I
was having problems getting to
school," she said.
Meeting Families' Needs
Transportation is always one of
the biggest problems for homeless
students, Ms. Riemer said.
The district got a 12.5 percent
increase in federal homeless education
grants this year, to about
$63,000, and is putting most of it
towards emergency shelter and
travel, such as buying students
bus passes and gas vouchers.
She and Ms. Dickinson have co-
ordinated on behalf of the district
with local churches, community
groups, and local agencies to provide
care for students and their
families, but, "everyone-all the
agencies and foundations who
work with our [homeless students]-is
experiencing budget
problems," Ms. Riemer said.
Nearly 1,000 miles north of Mo-
bile, in the 17,000-student Adrian
public schools in Lenawee County in
southern Michigan, district homeless
liaison Beth McCullough has seen an
increase in homeless students, with
and without families, every year for
most of the last decade. "In '08-'09,
we got to a point where we almost
doubled in a year and I had to catch
my breath," she recalled.
Today, that growth has slowed a
little-704 homeless students were
enrolled this year, up from 641 last
year-but the cash-strapped state
slashed all state funding for homeless
students by half in the past year.
"That's not sequestration; that's
sequestration and then some," she
said.
Adrian schools are not alone.
While a portion of federal education
support for students in poverty
is earmarked for homeless
students, the National Center for
Homeless Education study found
only 23 percent of school districts
receive direct homeless education
grants, called McKinney-Vento
funds. Those grants have grown
by 16 percent from 2009 to 2012,
not enough to keep pace with the
rise in homeless populations over
the same period of time or make
up for dwindling state funds, the
report found. And just last week,
stimulus-related boosts to federal
food aid for the poor expired, leading
to $5 billion less nationwide.
With the nearest homeless shelter
45 miles away, the district has
14 | EDUCATION WEEK | November 6, 2013 | www.edweek.org
set up the Road to Graduation, a
program modeled after foreignexchange
programs for students,
in which local families house and
mentor unaccompanied homeless
students for a year or two to help
them stay in school and make it to
graduation.
One of the host parents, the Rev.
Joel Sarrault of the local St. John's
Lutheran Church, said there was
a "steep learning curve" for both
his family members and the student
they took in, Gabe, whose
migrant farm worker family could
not support him. "A lot of our role
with Gabe was simply being parents
for him, trying to teach him
some responsibility and preparing
for the future, and he liked the
security of knowing, 'If you say
something, you're going to be there
for me.'"
"I greatly feel for teachers in
the public school system," Mr.
Sarrault said. "There are a lot
of teachers who just went out of
their way for students like Gabe,
but teachers aren't supposed to
be parents."
For now, local schools and community
groups are picking up the
cost of the program in Adrian,
but Ms. McCullough said she has
convinced many school officials to
take homeless students or keep
them in a stable placement by arguing
that federal or state homeless
grants would pick up the tab.
"I've had enough of those dis-
cussions that I know what's
coming," Ms. McCullough said.
"I'm concerned about what happens
when homeless kids become
expensive kids."
Homeless students are much
more likely than even other
students in poverty to have special
needs. The National Center
on Homeless Education report
Catherine Brakel, 18,
a former homeless
student, reviews her
university grades
online from her
apartment in Mobile,
Ala. She kept herself
afloat during high
school working at a
local 24-hour diner:
"I had school in the
morning, then
basketball practice,
and work 5-9 p.m.
On Fridays after
basketball games,
I did the 10 p.m. shift. ...
I did a lot of schoolwork
during quiet times
on the late shift."
"
We're seeing
more and more
families living
in hotels and
motels, and we
had not seen
that before."
LARISSA DICKINSON
Mobile County, Ala.,
school district
Jeff and Meggan Haller/Keyhole for Education Week
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Education Week - November 6, 2013

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