A School Where Every Student Is Homeless

by Josie Raymond · 2010-07-19 11:50:00 UTC
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Oklahoma City's only school exclusively for homeless students was shut down four years ago when it lost federal funding. Now it's back with a vengeance. And it's bringing with it some debate about whether homeless students should be essentially segregated by attending their own school. But in this case, the question shouldn't be whether the school, called Positive Tomorrows, is separate but equal, but whether its specialized programs actually make it separate but better.

Positive Tomorrows used to receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding from the federal government under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (pdf), until whoever was writing the checks decided that money shouldn't go to programs where homeless students are taught separately from their housed peers. So the leadership of Positive Tomorrows got to work fundraising and this summer was able to earn accreditation as a private school capable of teaching up to 45 homeless elementary school students at one time.

The government's argument for keeping homeless students in regular schools makes sense — it makes sure they're taught the same things in the same way, and keeps them from feeling even more isolated from their fellow students. After all, one of the worst parts of becoming homeless for a child is the unfortunate but often inevitable removal from the school and the school friends they know. But for many students, the approach of Positive Tomorrows carries even more benefits.

First of all, all the teachers know their students' situations and have been trained to deal with them. If a kid is falling asleep, the teacher recognizes that it's probably because the student spent the night in an overcrowded shelter. If a student's outfit is dirty, the teacher can send him to the in-school clothing pantry for new, quality school clothes.

Finally, as if any more evidence were needed: while Positive Tomorrows serves 45 children at a time, Oklahoma alone has 12,000+ homeless student in the 2008-2009 school year, up 32 percent from 2007-2008.

Photo credit: me and the sysop

Josie Raymond is a Change.org editor who has reported from the streets of the South Bronx, written for several magazines that folded (not her fault) and fixed thousands of typos.
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