Whats Happening with Indiana Schools!

[aludo]

Herald Times Article Dec. 02, 2009

Indiana public school students who are homeless has jumped, and is expected to climb further as high foreclosure and unemployment rates leave parents struggling to provide STABLE HOMES FOR CHILDREN

12% increase in homeless students within 2 years
not including children before elementary level, and those children who do not seek shelters/assistance

Overal 29,000 Indiana children are homeless

Parents Scrambling for a house and job don't have time to sit with their kids and work on homework....
(...how about sit with their children, period!)

Increase in withdrawals and classroom misbehavior

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It is common sense that this factors in with Indiana's increase in...

-Mental Illness
-School Drop out Rate
-Domestic Violence

The article mentions a McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act to provide funding (which Indiana utilizies) for students living in shelters.

School on Wheels in an organization in Indianapolis to provide tutoring and teaching at shelters.
This should be an issue resolved by community awareness and activism. If not, why is "all this funding" that is being pumped into schools not focusing on such issues.

Indiana News recently writes:
President Barack Obama has urged U.S. schools to lengthen school days or shorten summer vacations to align the U.S. with countries that have longer school years. The average school year in the United States is 180 days, compared with 200 or more in other countries.
Indiana has already found creative ways of lengthening 'learning sessions' by adding Saturday hours and summer school days

(*wow how creative??)

Please do not mistake my respect for an education system. But ive noticed all the funding for schools going toward longer hours, more tests, more credit requirements. How is this the answer to drop out rates? How does this lead to more interest in education?
These days, parents spend the majority of life at work...
for kids, the majority is in school all the way until...work...
Of course their are state learning standards. But how about using this extra time to bring awareness and acceptance of the current situation everyone is in.
We do fire drills, bomb drills, hurricane drills, etc. to feel safe in emergency
why not have a "drill" that brings relief to stressed/homeless students who are losing hold or focus on their lives, studies, and judgement.

The default is not in our teaching hours. It is in the methods and the image that kids have when they think of school.
It is supposed to be a sasfe place for learning- not all life-skill knowledge is about manners and textbooks standards.

[jill]

Hello aludo

There is no denying that this problem exists in the schools. But I respectfully disagree that the school needs to widen it's already weakened focus on education by expanding social services to students.

I would rather see the school boards actively seek out alliances with existing programs at social services agencies who are already addressing these issues. The Guidance Counsellors (or whatever they are called these days) could then take a more proactive role in identifying students with the issues that you described. Then in conference with the students and their parents, they could be introduced to these services. Guidance counselors are already serving as liasons with agencies on other issues (sexual identity, behavioral problems, divorce ,etc.), so it wouldn't be a new concept to them.

The schools could also have a school-wide convocation and have agencies like the Shalom Center, Family Services, Community Kitchen, etc. give brief presentations as to what they have. That way the students themselves would be armed with this information and take home some useful handouts for their parents.

But having the schools broaden their purpose to provide services which they are ill-equipped to provide I fear would weaken their singular focus: educate our kids.