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Homeless students add complication to transfers out of Normandy, Riverview Gardens

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Aug. 15, 2013: Josh Schindler is an attorney who has been advocating for parents who have fought to pull their children out of the unaccredited Riverview Gardens and Normandy school districts. 

But the plight of homeless students has added another layer to the school transfer debate, he said.

"There is no question that there is a level of difficulty for children of families in transition. These kids could get lost unless we are mindful that they are out there. We lose sight of our job to educate every child, including those without homes. It’s a terrible situation."

Schindler said he has made a special effort to protect the rights of homeless youngsters in the two districts and urge accredited districts to do all they can to accommodate homeless students who might have applied for transfers.

The two districts had a combined total of 1,123 homeless students during the previous school term, with 856 of them enrolled in Riverview, according to data from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. The numbers are likely to be even higher this term because they have risen annually since the 2007-08 school year.

The number of homeless students requesting transfers isn't known; the two unaccredited districts said the data on student transfers aren't broken down in a way to show which of them have no permanent address.

Families of children seeking to transfer are required to produce documentation, such as a utility bill, that establishes residency. But homeless children are exempted from that requirement under a Missouri statute, Schindler says.

Although the Missouri statute would seem to make it easier for the youngsters to transfer, Schindler says some accredited districts have been reluctant to accept the students. He says lawyers have had to acquaint district officials with federal protection for the homeless under both a Missouri statute and the federal McKinney Act.

“These are very difficult situations,” he says. “A lot of receiving districts have been very good in accepting homeless children. But others, I don’t want to name them, seem to want to put up barriers.”

He says an attorney in his office, Kalila Jackson, has had to spend a day, sitting down with various school officials to talk about how the laws are relevant to school transfers.

“A lot of people aren’t sensitive to the McKinney Act or to (Missouri statute) 167.020, so we have to remind them that these children aren’t subject to the same requirements as other kids because there are other rules that govern them.”

He said officials are supposed to look at a child’s school of origin before the family became homeless. In other words, just because the child is now enrolled in Riverview Gardens or Normandy, it doesn’t follow that the child didn’t attend another district before becoming homeless.

In cases of disputes over the school of origin, such as a family claiming to have lived in an accredited district before becoming homeless and that district claiming otherwise, Schindler said an effort is made to place the student in the accredited district.

The rule, he said, is that the "child is immediately placed in that district until the issue is resolved. And once you do that, that child stays in that district until the end of the year."

He said his law firm "advocates in favor of where that child wants to be because we believe that’s in the best interest of the child. There have been complaints. But we need to remind school administrators, some of them haven’t dealt with either the federal or state law, that what we care about at the end of the day is educating these children."

Among homeless parents known to have transferred their children is a 48-year-old Bellefontaine Neighbors mother whose life began a downward spiral after she lost her job a year ago this week.

Technically, she remains homeless in spite of finding a new job. She and her two sons, ages 5 and 8, live in transitional housing.

Both the woman and Schindler requested that her identity not be made public partly to protect her privacy and partly because the transitional housing program does not want clients to disclose information about tenants, some of whom need protection because they are victims of domestic abuse.

When families lack permanent housing and are trying to get back on their feet financially, searching for good schools for their children might become a low priority. But not in this woman’s case. While she works as a nursing assistant three days a week, from 8 p.m. till 8 a.m., her two sons are cared for in an overnight child-care center. She says that her work schedule means she can devote four full days serving as her children’s first teacher, and that the arrangement isn’t nearly as difficult as it might sound.

"I am homeless because I lost my job, but I’ve always worked hard and I’ve always held my family together. Even now, I don’t consider myself homeless. I’m in transitional housing, so it’s not like I’m on the street."

Through the help of the Children’s Education Alliance, her sons were able to transfer from Riverview Gardens to the accredited Kirkwood district. The woman said she fought to pull her oldest son out of Riverview Gardens because she says he wasn’t challenged enough.

“My oldest son is smart. He made A’s and B’s at Riverview Gardens, but I knew he wasn’t being taught what he’s capable of learning.  I don’t know how things will work in Kirkwood, but I feel like he’ll be challenged more.”

Robert Joiner has carved a niche in providing informed reporting about a range of medical issues. He won a Dennis A. Hunt Journalism Award for the Beacon’s "Worlds Apart" series on health-care disparities. His journalism experience includes working at the St. Louis American and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where he was a beat reporter, wire editor, editorial writer, columnist, and member of the Washington bureau.