A School on Wheels volunteer tutors a homeless child.

Ten year-old Marcus was angry, difficult and had no interest in school. And his favorite sentences—“I do crack and cocaine,” “I’m going to shoot you,” and “I have a gun”—were like verbal “Keep Out” signs. But none of this fazed his tutor, Carol Lee.

She’d greet him each time they met with an enthusiastic high five. Still, when it was time to settle down and do schoolwork, Marcus would crumple up his papers and throw them on the floor. “But then it started to dawn on him that he wasn’t getting rid of me so fast,” recalls Lee. “I was there for him and only him and he started to get that too. And that I genuinely liked him and wanted him to do well in school.”

Marcus eventually let Lee work with him and several months ago, the lanky, brown-eyed boy ran up to Lee jubilant, waving a spelling test he’d aced. “The pride he felt from that one success changed him. He’s happier, far less angry. And now he can’t wait to do his schoolwork.”

Keeping Homeless Kids “On the Right Page”
Marcus is homeless, and Lee has been meeting with him weekly at a shelter in downtown Los Angeles where he’s been staying for the last year with his mother and three siblings. Lee is an unpaid volunteer from School on Wheels, a program that provides one-on-one tutoring for homeless children throughout Los Angeles, Ventura and Orange counties, whether they live in a shelter, a motel, or a car. The program’s mission is to “shrink the gaps in the education of these children… who have a daily struggle in accomplishing their one job as a child: learning.”

The founder of School on Wheels is 68-year-old Agnes Stevens, a former elementary school teacher, who became aware of the uphill battle homeless children face to keep up with their studies while volunteering at a school in Venice after she’d retired. There, she acted as a liaison between the school and a shelter across the street, helping homeless children adjust to their new classes.

According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, homelessness among families is increasing nationwide. Requests for emergency shelter by families with children in 25 cities increased by an average of 17 percent between 1999 and 2000. In addition to the Los Angeles region, School on Wheels has a chapter in Indianapolis and is in the process of organizing others in Brockton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, and Washington, D.C. To learn more, contact School on Wheels at: Administration@SchoolonWheels.org www.SchoolonWheels.org 310.589.2642 P.O. Box 2283 Malibu, California 90265

“As I got more involved and started looking over their records, I realized how often these children moved. They were always behind, literally never on the right page, in spite of their best efforts,” says Stevens. “It occurred to me that one-on-one tutoring would be the most effective way to help them get caught up.”

One year later, Stevens started School on Wheels. During the summer of 1993, she began a solo effort recruiting volunteer tutors and introducing herself to the homeless community, “door to door, child to child, one shelter and one family at a time.” Today, with over 300 tutors, the program covers ten school districts and helps approximately 3,000 children each year.

An Unmet Need
While those numbers are considerable, they are small compared to the amount of kids who have no permanent address: According to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, in 2002, on any given night, there were nearly 79,000 homeless people in Los Angeles County; 34,000 of them are part of homeless families.

In a report released by The Better Homes Fund in 1999, one-fifth of homeless children in this country do not attend school. Those who do experience four times the rate of developmental delays as other children and are twice as likely to repeat a grade.

“The ultimate purpose of School on Wheels is to help these children believe they can learn and succeed. A child may not be able to find affordable housing for his family or get his mother a job but he can do well in school. This is the piece we can help with, to empower them by giving them some control over their lives,” says Stevens. Which is why, although a homeless child’s world is fraught with extraordinary hardships, the program’s focus is strictly on education.

Undivided Attention
Still, Stevens is quick to point out that the tutors provide a lot more than instruction—what she refers to as the intangibles. “They give a child undivided attention, something we all need but that these kids rarely get. And some stability. These can’t be measured,” says Stevens. “I tell my tutors, first and foremost your child is the client. They’re often the only person in the child’s life who’s driving home the message that they matter.”

Take 16-year-old Drew. Penny Campbell first began tutoring him at the Salvation Army shelter where he lived with his mother and 7-year-old half-brother. With an IQ of 60, Drew was classified as mentally retarded. During his junior year, he refused to participate in gym, a prerequisite for graduation. “Every time we’d meet, we’d talk about this. We’d focus on his future,” recalls Campbell. “He had big dreams for himself, realistic goals, and I kept telling him he needed to resolve this gym issue in order to follow those dreams.”

The two worked it through and Campbell helped Drew and his mother arrange to make up the class at his local YMCA. “The most rewarding aspect for me is knowing that this boy knows he can count on me,” says Campbell.

That’s why it can be hard on both tutors and children when a homeless child moves, as they often do. School on Wheels takes this into consideration and whenever possible, the program administrators try to arrange for the tutor to follow the child. Campbell remembers “how upset Drew was” when his mother told him he was moving. “He thought he’d never see me again,” she recalls. However, Campbell continues to tutor both Drew and his younger brother, who now share a single room with their mother in a private house.

Just Saying No to Public Funds
This year, Steven’s annual budget is $500,000. That’s a lot of money to raise—particularly when all the funding comes from private sources. “I’m not interested in any federal or state money for several reasons,” explains Stevens. “When you’re dependent on the government and times are bad, you could lose everything. I’ve seen that happen to small charities. And the energy and hours it takes to write those grants are enormous. That would take too much time away from our focus, which is on helping as many children as we can.”

Businesses like Honda, AT&T and UPS have been major contributors. The rest of the dollars come from private family foundations and individuals. “You have to fight to be simple,” says Stevens. “I also don’t want to be identified by a party or person. We’re living proof that you can have an organization with a board comprised of those from the right, the left, and the middle and they come together for a kid.”

Help with More Than ABC’s
In addition to helping kids with their studies, mentors are sometimes called upon to do more. For instance, homeless children are sometimes turned away from schools that refuse to enroll them because they lack documents such as vaccination records, transcripts, and proof of residency. Though federal law prohibits schools from refusing to enroll homeless children for these reasons (McKinney Vento Act, 2001), parents and school administrators aren’t always aware of the law.

“When a child gets turned away and we hear about it, first we make parents aware of their rights, then we help get their kid enrolled,” says Stevens. “That means anything from outfitting the child with a backpack, uniform and supplies, to giving a mother bus fare so she can get herself with her four kids down to the school.”

It is this emphasis on what Stevens calls, “the teeny tiny things,” that is at the heart of the program. “Our connecting with the kid is not so he can get A’s right away,” she says. “All we want to do is help the child fill the gap in his education that he’s experienced from the instability of his life right now. We’re the glue. Each child has his own gap to fill. Like the little girl who didn’t do her math homework simply because she didn’t have paper and she was ashamed to tell the teacher. This is a seemingly insignificant detail that can make or break a kid.”

Resource:

• The National Coalition for the Homeless is a comprehensive source of information and advocacy for homeless families and individuals.
• Visit the Connect for Kids Education topic pages.
  

Holly St. Lifer is a writer and television producer specializing in issues concerning parents, children and media.