Update: Tribune writer Hayley Ringle is reporting that a Maricopa County Superior Court judge has agreed to allow the county supervisors to close the three Pappas schools at end of the school year. County Superintendent of Public Instruction Sandra Dowling plans to appeal that decision.
The Tribune Editorial Board received a few sharp comments in response to our Saturday editorial supporting a difficult decision by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to seek the closure of the three Pappas schools for homeless children in Phoenix and Tempe.
Perhaps the most stinging criticism came from reader Sue Adams:
“For the next three months, I challenge the entire editorial staff and all members of their respective families to live in the street, one car per family with only the possessions the can be loaded in that single vehicle. No cell phones, no video games, computers of any kind, no expensive ’survival gear,’ no credit cards, no debt cards, no gas cards, no ’store gift cards.’ And you can not be paid by the newspaper for this experiment – you’re all just out on the streets on your own.
Try letting your children sleep in your car for a few days, awaking without a nice bathroom to brush their teeth or take a shower before they go to school. No clean clothes and, by the end of the second week, little to no food. Let’s see how they do volumes of homework under street lights. Let’s see how their friends treat them when they’re wearing the same clothes on Friday that they wore on Monday. Let’s just see what they learn in a month. Let’s just see how their grades look at the end of the next report card period.”
I appreciate Adams’ passion for the least fortunate among us. But I have to point out that any family living out of a vehicle for weeks at a time is teetering on the very edge of child neglect. Every public official that comes in contact with such families should be pushing to get them into a more stable housing situation, not essentially enabling the family to stay in the car by ameliorating the worst effects for the children (such as showers at school every single day.) This certainly shouldn’t be the justification for keeping the Pappas schools in operation when the funding isn’t available to support them.
Tim Johnson, a 5th grade teacher, at the Tempe Pappas Elementary School, raised questions about the comparison of Pappas students to other homeless students in Arizona:
“According to the Arizona Department of Education half of the Pappas students live in shelters, hotels or makeshift homes in cars and parks. Only one-fourth of the homeless children in traditional schools live in a similar setting. The remaining students are ranked as homeless because they live in a single family dwelling with more than one family. This means that 75% of the students traditional public schools call homeless could be living with their parents in a home where they may also have a friend living. The schools can label students as homeless if their family is living with an aunt or uncle’s family. This loose definition of homelessness allows districts to classify students who may in fact have a stable home life, and don’t move around, as ‘homeless.’ Why would they do this? Well, more homeless students equates to more federal funding.”
Johnson has a point. But extensive academic research in other parts of the country also has shown segregating homeless students only harms their educational opportunities. That’s why federal law generally bans states from such segregation using federal funds, and only political lobbying has protected the Pappas schools with a specific exemption.
Johnson also noted that all three Pappas schools are ranked as “performing” under the Arizona Learns program. But that relatively low rank likely reflects improvement in AIMS scores from the prior year, not that the overall scores are anywhere close to acceptable. Johnson doesn’t mention that the three schools are considered “failing” under the federal No Child Left Behind standards, which places them at risk of eventually being taken over by the state anyway.
Funding problems for the Pappas schools, combined with a willingness from Valley districts to accept these students into their classrooms, means the best answer for these students and county taxpayers is to close the Pappas schools.
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