Description

Learn about the Mustard Seed emergency school for homeless kids and how school drop out rates are directly connected to crime rates.

Transcript

Female: We only can go to 9 once. That’s all we can have. Rob: To fully understand what's behind our states dropout crisis. Consider that a huge number of California school children face some incredibly dire circumstances. Angela Hassell is the executive director of the Mustard Seed School in Sacramento. Female: 28-29. Now, we're going to do tenths. Angela: It’s hard being a homeless child and not having that predictability of staying at the same school for an entire school year. Typically these kids see 3, 4, 5 schools in a given school year. We’re and emergency school for homeless children. So, while families are homeless, their kids can attend school. I think by keeping kids in school for even one day, it helps them not get turned off by school. Rob: The National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth estimates more than 200,000 of the state’s students are considered homeless. And those numbers don’t reflect the mortgage prices. Male: When you might not have a roof over your head, a different place every night. When you have parents that are feeling the stress. I mean, that’s felt by students. Rob: At the Mustard Seed School, the mission is to ease some of the academic and social challenges that come with being homeless while struggling to get an education. Angela: They know that when they come in to the classroom, they're going to be welcomed and be nurtured and given activities that are school appropriate and engaging. They might know where they're sleeping at night, but there's a sense of predictability about the school day here. It becomes a source of stability for them. Rob: For homeless students, the first big challenge is simply getting to school. Angela: We have two school vans that go out each morning and pick up kids whether at some motels, at shelters. If they're staying with a family friend. Rob: From the moment a student first comes through the doors at Mustard Seed, the student staff immediately works in establishing a relationship with them. Khavin: School is the only sense of continuity and consistency in the children’s lives. I try and instill I believe in them and I believe in their abilities and how smart they are. Their ability to be able to graduate from high school and go on to college. Rob: Along with trying to provide stability, the Mustard Seed School also sees its role as kind of an educational gap filler. Angela: We have a student resource specialist who each time a new student comes in, he will give them some form of assessment. It kind of gives us an academic picture of each student who comes in. then we can see where the gaps are in their education. Kid: 37-38-39. I was right. Khavin: Some of the children, when they enter the first grade have never been to school before. So sometimes I have to start from that angle and when I fill in as many holes as possible, when they move on to another school, they're not as far behind as perhaps they may have been if they didn’t come to Mustard Seed. Rob: With the average stay being just 4 weeks, a major goal at Mustard Seed is to help get homeless students re-enrolled into public schools. And, they hope, provide a stepping stone to graduation. Angela: Once they're gone and enrolled back into public school, we try to maintain those connections. But sometimes that falls away. So we don’t always see what happens after they leave here. But the idea is that we've given them hope and happy memories and a chance to learn in a welcoming environment while they're homeless. Kevin: There are states, California, there is only New Mexico, Florida. Three states around the country that are looking at 3rd grade leading scorers and projecting how many prisons they're going to need to build. Gloria: 70% of inmates in the California prison system today did not have a high school diploma. And for the juvenile system, we know that it cost about $1 billion a year to incarcerate. Kevin: And these inmates, 1 out of 5 of them, don’t read above 3rd grade. Orlando: Had I gotten my high school diploma when I was out in society and going to school and doing what I need to, I wouldn’t probably would end up in prison. I could pretty much guarantee that because of the social circles that I run around with. Oges: If I have stayed in school, I wouldn’t have been exposed to the streets and all those negativity in the streets. And I think I'm off better off going to school. Bobby: School was nothing to me. Nobody ever took the time out to show me how it relates to the real world. I never knew how to call on somebody for help. And so school to me was one big part. Joseph: I dropped out at my 12th grade, I was 18. And then I started looking to the future, and you really need these things. This program here actually prepares you for the outside when you do go out there. You already have your GED or you have vocational skills or trade or something you learn in here. When you go out there, then you're ready for what's coming up next instead of just coming out there with nothing. Chris: A lot of these inmates get their GED, or whatever academic achievement they get, not for themselves but for their children. Their children have gotten to the point now where they may be at risk for moving into the same direction that they themselves where when they were young. Bobby: Right now in California prisons, they're downsizing in education and they're downsizing in rehabilitation, right. We are also facing of release of many thousands of people back to the society. Guys who go through these programs are less likely to re-appear. I think it’s kind of backwards that we cut education in the time that we need it so badly.