Challenges of Transient Students

By Cindy Reitzi,
Madison substitute teacher
April 2001

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.
– Chief Seattle

Tony, Carter, and Randy – the Three Musketeers – start 2nd grade at square one. They can’t read, and they’re sure they’ll flunk 2nd grade, a disheartening thought for children so young. The reasons they can’t read are complicated, emotional and financial tangles; they have responded with deep emotion and disruptive behavior in school. This young, they are already in jeopardy, trapped in a web of problems that stem from poverty and result in homelessness, school transience, and academic shellshock. This year, perhaps, they are calm enough to learn, but too afraid of failure. This year will be different from 1st grade.

Ms. L., a special education teacher, understands the urgency of getting the boys hooked on reading now. She takes this rare opportunity and forms a group to teach them to read. For Randy and Carter, this window of opportunity is only a crack.
Four weeks into 2nd grade, they already know their letters and sounds and start their first emergent reader book. I meet them at this turning point, when their despair of ever learning to read turns to hope and excitement.

“Learning to read by 3rd grade is a major indicator of future success. A 1997 Packard Foundation study found that children who learned to read ‘on time’ were less likely to end up on welfare or in jail later in life.”

However, transient and homeless students may find it difficult to learn TO read because of frequent movement and domestic disruption.

“1st through 6th graders who have moved three or more times score half as well on reading tests as students who stay put.”

When I meet Randy, he is in foster care. He has a shockingly hard look, not the look of a young boy, but the look of someone much older with layers of defense mechanisms. He is suspicious of friendliness and his gaze warns off strangers from approaching too closely. Much has happened to him to make him feel guarded, unsafe, and selective in whom he trusts.

When I meet Carter, his home is the Salvation Army. Despite his circumstances, Carter is excited to read. He brings notes back to school, signed by his mother, indicating that he has read up to 60 minutes to his brother at home.

Carter has had a tough, short life. He is a sensitive child who expresses his emotions deeply. Carter has an open gaze; there is nothing in his eyes that filter or block out the glare of his world. He has no defense mechanisms, no protective gestures. His vulnerability frightens me.

“...growing numbers of men and women who serve the fast food we eat, who clean the offices where we work, who watch our children in daycare centers, and who perform many other low-wage jobs, aren’t paid enough to house their families in safe and decent conditions. Without housing assistance, they live on the edge of homelessness, struggling desperately each month to put food on the table and keep a roof over their families’ heads.”
As the boys gain confidence, they engage in good-natured competition to read more and more books. Ms. L. gives them book maps. They color in each tile on the “road” for every book they can read.

By eight weeks, the boys can read 250 words and 28 emergent reader books. But soon, Randy is gone, transferred to a different school in the middle of the quarter. He goes to a private school that cannot handle his behavior and within a month is back in public school. He adjusts to three schools in three months. His latest teacher reports that even though his behavior is still adjusting, the one thing he loves to do is read.

“Teachers and administrators must learn how to grieve after they have invested hours and hours in a child and seen tremendous progress, only to have her or him leave one day without even having the opportunity to say goodbye.”

By 12 weeks, we say goodbye to Carter, too. In one blinking moment of their lives, Ms. L. has taught Randy, Carter and Tony to read. The reading group is reduced to Tony, who initially loses ground without his other two musketeers.

Despite our short acquaintance, I worry about Carter more than other kids who can protect themselves and who have better survival skills. Yet ironically, his very vulnerability is what draws some adults to him to protect him, to keep him safe, to let him cry when he needs to.

At his new school, Carter is surrounded by teachers who genuinely care about him. Although he doesn’t adjust easily and must be sent home frequently, his new classroom teacher reports, “He does love to read. He loves to show people he can.”

According to Dr. Joy Rogers of Loyola University, it takes a child about four to six months to recover academically from a change in school.

Sources:
Coniff, Ruth, “Bouncing from School to School,” The Progressive, November, 1998, v.62, no.11, pp. 21-25.
Heyback, Laurene M. and Patricia Nix-Hodes, “Reducing Mobility: Good for Kids, Good for Schools,” Law Project of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.