For homeless, no place like school

Killip's outreach extends to adults, too - with groups hosting educational programs on evenings and weekends. "I have not worked in a district [before] where working with our families in need was as high a priority," says Principal Gutierrez. When he first came to the school 10 years ago, he says, he was skeptical about having a shower and laundry facilities. "I thought, 'What are we doing? We're here to educate kids.'... [Then] the light went on and I got it."

Under No Child Left Behind, schools must look more closely at the academic progress of low-income students. And homeless kids are generally extreme examples: The average income in their families is just 46 percent of the poverty level, according to NAEHCY.

For fiscal year 2005, $62.5 million from McKinney-Vento will be divvied up among the states to provide training for school staff and services for homeless students. Districts that don't win McKinney-Vento grants from their states can tap into Title I funds for low-income students.

Through state liaisons, the US Department of Education is starting to track whether homeless students are meeting state standards. In Arizona, for example, the districts that receive McKinney-Vento grants report that 39 percent of homeless students meet or exceed state standards for third-grade reading. That compares with 71 percent of all students statewide, says Mattie McVey, the homeless-education coordinator for Arizona.

But homeless children's skills run the gamut, so schools need to break down barriers to everything from gifted-education programs to athletics or other extracurriculars. The priority given to these issues varies considerably. Many of the local liaisons have other jobs, too, such as counseling. Anderson says Flagstaff is fortunate to be able to hire her full time, and another liaison half time, because the district won one of the 21 McKinney-Vento grants given out last year in Arizona.

Anderson and her fellow liaison, Stephanie Sivak, say it's sometimes hard to keep their spirits up when they see children caught in cycles of homelessness. Families often come to Flagstaff looking for work, but motels along Route 66 charge $200 a week - so there's little money left over to get into a better situation. And the conditions in some of them are "atrocious," Ms. Sivak says.

They've also seen women and children go back to abusers because the shelters have a time limit, and longer-term living options have waiting lists.

Some families simply don't take advantage of the opportunity to keep their children in one school as they move around. "It's frustrating for a teacher if a child is doing well and making friends and the parent decides to move them to another school," Sivak says. One boy is at his fifth school in Flagstaff, and he's only in third grade.

But there are modest successes: Thank you notes from kids who have graduated from high school. Parents who have gained stability, or at least the skills so they can be stable for longer stretches between stints of homelessness. "Those kids are strong - a child who can do their homework in the car, and come to school on time, and want to be here - they're just amazing," Anderson says.

In the broader community, there are still people who hear the word "homeless" and envision a scruffy man on the street. But city officials know that families are affected, the liaisons say, and they're working to change the fact that "affordable housing" is an oxymoron.

Darlene, Steve, and Nicole are squeaking by after they pay $490 a month for the trailer home. Who knows how long that arrangement will last, but one thing, at least, is stable - Nicole's school. One tiny hint of how important that's been to the creative 10-year-old: her homeroom "cubby." The children have hooks for their coats, and cubes just above, for small items. "For Nicole, it's her place - it's almost like a locker," Stuckey says. "She has beads, little stuffed animals - it's like a kingdom. And there's not one other kid who has that need to make their cubby that way."

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