Reached more than 3000 children

US mobile school provides education services to homeless children

• Children of a homeless mother receive their education.

  From the source

• Getting close to the children and encouraging them to study are the most important requirements for the success of the mission.

  From the source

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The late teacher, Agnes Stephens, created a mobile school, which she called "School on Wheels", that goes to the communities of homeless children to provide them with educational services.

This school started in 1993 in the Skid Row area of ​​Los Angeles, which is notorious for having a large number of homeless children who are behind in the educational process, and in the next few years, the school recruited more volunteers, and it grew with the help of teacher Catherine Meek, who joined in 1999 .

Inspiration

“The late Stephens was an inspiration, a teacher, she had an educational background, and I have a business and financial background,” Mick says. “There was an urgent need in 1993 for such backgrounds to develop the school, and the school has grown exponentially since then, in the period One out of every 30 students in California was homeless.”

The school has partnered with shelters, school districts, motels, libraries, and wherever there are homeless families, and its services reach those who live in cars, in nursing homes, and on the streets.

It has reached more than 3,000 homeless children annually, and has recruited and trained more than 2,000 teachers annually.

Its annual funding was $3.5 million in 2020.

“Students who experience homelessness move around three to four times a year, and with each move, they are four months behind academically,” says school chief executive Charles Evans.

The school does not care about the students' backgrounds, but rather focuses solely on assessing the educational needs of children, such as a fourth-grade student who is falling behind in reading or a tenth-grader struggling with algebra and biology.

"We're really here just to support the child, and I think a lot of families of homeless children love us and appreciate what we do for them, and we don't intrude and try to figure out why the family is homeless," says Evans.

evaluation

Babies are evaluated every few weeks to make sure they are getting better.

Meek says that in 2021, students in kindergarten through fourth grade improved their reading and writing skills by 21%;

In the past six months, fifth to eighth graders' math skills have improved by about a grade level, and self-efficacy surveys have shown a 40% increase in ninth through 12th graders' confidence in their learning potential.

In addition to the private lessons it provides, “School on Wheels” is working to erase the stigma of homelessness, as many families who receive educational assistance from this school are victims of domestic violence or economic hardship, and now these families are doing their best to get back on their feet.

For example, the school provided needed assistance to a single mother in her twenties, who asked not to be named for security reasons, who left her husband due to an abusive relationship and ended up in a shelter with her four young children.

"It was the best thing my kids ever received," she says. "They love their teachers."

This mother is now receiving reports from the school that her children are doing much better. "The teacher has noticed a big improvement in my daughter in mathematics," she says.

School board member Angela Sanchez herself suffered homelessness during the last two years of high school, after her father lost his job and could no longer afford the house rent.

“Once we became homeless, there were no options available to us, and I realized that I wouldn’t even be able to go to university,” she says, adding that she hid her circumstances to avoid stigma, but the school changed its outlook, as she was receiving mathematics from a teacher who studied physics. The astronomer at the California Institute of Technology, that teacher did not view Sanchez as a homeless child, but understood her dreams and aspirations.

"Literally, I had a rocket technologist help me learn math," she says.

Confidence

She says it also gave her the confidence to earn a bachelor's degree in history and a master's in education.

Now in her thirties, she is a stockbroker, a well-known author, and has a home.

Aside from a program for teaching younger children and teaching specific subjects to older students, the school helps high school students plan their future to go to college, have a home and become independent.

The school has partnered with shelters, school districts, motels, libraries, and wherever there are homeless families, reaching people who live in cars, in nursing homes, and on the streets.

Regardless of the program for teaching younger children, and teaching specific subjects to older students, the school helps high school students plan their future to go to college, have a home, and become independent.

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