Number of homeless students on the rise
By Zachary K. Johnson
The (Stockton, CA) Record
February 7, 2006
MANTECA - The number of homeless students in Stockton and
Manteca Unified school district has tripled in the past three
years, according to school officials.
The increase, however, largely may be the result of reporting
requirements prompted by the federal No Child Left Behind
Act.
Manteca Unified has pushed hard this year to find and count
its homeless students. The district identifies the students
but keeps their identities confidential, school officials
said.
Manteca's homeless population rose from 35 students in
2003-04, to 61 students last year, to 100 students so far
this year, according to state and district numbers. And this
year's number will grow, said Caroline Thibodeau, Manteca
Unified's health services coordinator and homeless liaison.
When Stockton Unified began a program identifying homeless
students in 2003-04, it found 118 children, district
officials said. This year, the district already has counted
394.
The goal - as it always has been - is to give homeless
students the same education as any other student, she said.
That sentiment also is present in the No Child Left Behind
legislation. The law calls on state departments of education
to ensure homeless students have equal access to learning.
Since the No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law in
2002, school districts across San Joaquin County have been
making strides to do so. Just last month, school boards at
Manteca Unified, Tracy Unified and Jefferson Elementary
school districts approved new homeless student policies to
comply with the law.
While heightened awareness is pushing up the number of
counted homeless students, the actual population of homeless
students appears to be growing as well, said Mike Bagnell,
homeless liaison for the San Joaquin County Office of
Education.
The county office enrolled 130 homeless students in 2003-04
and 194 in 2004-05, according to state figures. The count
already is more than 100 this year and is expected to grow,
Bagnell said.
Manteca Unified has been giving this kind of help for years,
long before No Child Left Behind and last month's new
homeless policy, district officials said. The biggest change
found in the district's new policy deals with transportation,
Thibodeau said.
The law calls on districts to provide transportation for
students that become homeless. If the student moves within
the boundaries of another school district, the two school
districts need to agree how they will share the
transportation responsibility, according to guidelines from
the U.S. Department of Education.
A mother of three, who recently moved into a Manteca shelter,
wasn't aware of this and for the past month has been scraping
together the money she needs to pay for gas to drive her
three kids to school in Escalon Unified. The woman asked to
remain anonymous so her children would not be singled out at
school. She has not told either school district her children
are homeless.
It's important to her to keep the children in their same
schools, she said.
"It's a lot better," she said. "It makes it
more stable for them: Same situations, same friends."
It takes training to make school staff more alert to spot
homeless students, said Jimmie Sasaki, parent involvement
specialist and former homeless liaison at Stockton Unified.
"Homelessness is not something kids want to talk about,
or their parents want to talk about," he said.
The number of homeless students reported in districts
statewide has been rising because of growing awareness, said
Leanne Wheeler, a consultant in the state's No Child Left
Behind Implementation and Accountability Office. The first
time the state took a homeless student count from districts
across the state was for the 2003-04 school year. By the next
school year, the requests were more formal, because districts
were required to include the number of homeless students in
annual applications filed with the state to secure certain
funding, she said.
California schools reported enrolling 149,000 homeless
students in 2004-05.
Contact reporter Zachary K. Johnson at
(209) 833-1142 or zjohnson@recordnet.com