When Cornell superintendent Aaron Thomas interviews a potential
administrator, he wants to know if the candidate will drive a school van.
Administrators, including the superintendent, sometimes need to drive a parent
to a teacher conference or a child to a doctor appointment.
At Grandview Upper Elementary School in the Highlands School District, it’s
not unusual for principal Heather Hauser to find a bag of groceries on her desk,
left anonymously by a staff member. The school started a food pantry after a
student one Friday said he didn’t have anything to eat at home.
At Pittsburgh Faison K-5 in Homewood, the nonprofit Homewood Children’s
Village provides extra sets of hands to help in the high-poverty school, among
them a community school site director, four den advisers who help tutor and four
social work interns who call families when children are absent and find ways to
help.
School isn’t about just reading, writing and arithmetic.
Using their own staff and community partners, public schools are finding ways
to address the many needs of children — such as hunger, homelessness, violence
in their homes or communities, grief, mental health issues and inadequate
clothing — that are barriers to their learning.
“The issues that kids have are not left at the schoolhouse door,” said
Baldwin High School social worker Annette Fiovaniss.
Ms. Hauser recalled a child who sometimes melted down in the morning. “The
first thing I would do is say, ‘Let me see your feet.’ When he didn’t have socks
on, I knew that day for him was difficult.”
She got him clean socks at the nurse’s office. “That helped put his day back
together,” she said.
While some researchers found teachers are the most important school-related
factor, outside factors — including individual and family characteristics — may
have four to eight times the impact as teachers do on student achievement,
according to a Rand Corp. report.
Kellie Irwin, who has been a school social worker in Woodland Hills for more
than 30 years, said, “A lot of my job is trying to get the kids to a place they
can learn. … You can’t expect a child to score well on the Keystone Exams or the
algebra test or whatever subject you want if they are hungry, they don’t have
proper clothing or they don’t know where they’re going to sleep that night.”
In Allegheny County, all school districts provide free or reduced-price
school lunch to needy students. Most districts also serve breakfast, and a few
offer a snack, too. In Pittsburgh and a handful of other districts, so many
students are needy that all get the food free.
Some agencies or volunteers help to provide food to take home on Fridays as
well, including a new effort by the Buhl Foundation in partnership with the
Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank and FOCUS North America, an Orthodox
Christian organization, that this fall will begin providing weekend food for
nearly 2,000 North Side students.
Some schools provide clothes for students as needed. Pittsburgh Langley K-8
in Sheraden has coats on hand in the winter. Baldwin High School staff donated
clothes for a needy student when an email told of the need and the sizes. For
years, Pittsburgh Lincoln PreK-5 has had a washer and dryer to help students
whose clothes are dirty.
Some of the barriers, such as food and housing insecurity, are related to
poverty. Nationwide, 22 percent of children under age 18 are living in poverty,
with 19 percent in Pennsylvania, according to Annie E. Casey Foundation data
from 2013, the latest available figures.
At the same time, many students are receiving human services. In Pittsburgh
Public Schools, 53 percent of the students had prior involvement with at least
one of 14 child welfare, behavioral health, support programs, intellectual
disability and juvenile justice programs, according to the county Department of
Human Services. In the Clairton School District, the figure was 74 percent.
Students receiving services face challenges to do well in school, or even to
show up. In Pittsburgh Public Schools, more than half of the students who missed
20 percent of the school year in 2011-12 are involved in the human services
system, according to a county report. Most students who missed that much school
have GPAs that fall below 2.5, according to the report.
Needs rise, staff shrinks
While many schools have staff members tackling social service needs, such
resources are often limited.
On average, statewide in 2013-14 when K-12 public school enrollment totaled
more than 1.7 million students, there was one guidance counselor for every 409
students. There was an average of the full-time equivalent of 1 nurse for every
877 students, with many school nurses traveling from one building to another.
And in a state with 500 school districts, there was just the full-time
equivalent of 250 social workers.
“I haven’t met one school which has enough social workers for the work they
have,” said Samantha Murphy, resource services manager in the integrated
services program of the county Department of Human Services.
Beyond their own staffs, schools also are relying on outside groups for
help.
