Bossier City, La.
While many students eagerly count down the last few days of the school year, the start of summer break is a more anxious prospect for students in and on the verge of homelessness.
鈥淟etting these kids go in the summer, which sounds great, is for many homeless kids the worst time in their life,鈥� said Ralph da Costa Nunez, the president of the Institute for Children, Poverty, and Homelessness.
That鈥檚 why programs like the Bossier Schools Summer Blast program here are working to help the most vulnerable students keep the academic and social supports they enjoy while school is in session.
Nearly half of Bossier Parish鈥檚 23,000 students live in poverty and 400 are homeless. Blast Camp provides three full-day weeks for students in grades 2-5 who are homeless or in foster care. Campers get free transportation, t-shirts, and breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snacks. Four days a week, they have hands-on classes in reading, math, science, and art with district teachers and community groups. On Fridays, the campers go on field trips to local museums, nature centers, and the local emergency services center.
鈥淓ven though it鈥檚 only three weeks, it gives a student three weeks of time to keep his brain going and make sure he鈥檚 not losing all the skills he gained during the school year,鈥� said Arcenia Anthony, the homeless liaison for Bossier Parish public schools, who directs the camp.
Bracing for 鈥楽ummer Surge鈥�
Families with school-age children drive an annual 鈥渟ummer surge鈥� in homelessness, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
鈥淪ingle homeless [people] are moving all the time in the wintertime. Homeless families don鈥檛 move, because their kids are in school,鈥� said da Costa Nunez. 鈥淣o matter where they are, they kind of hole up ... and even though it鈥檚 a shelter or in a doubled-up environment, it creates a stable environment for kids. They know where they鈥檙e coming and going from every day.鈥�
But relatives or friends who had allowed families to live doubled up to let their children attend school often ask them to move out at the end of the school year, experts say. Many families end up on the move.
Though programs like Bossier City鈥檚 are few and far between, da Costa Nunez said, 鈥淚f you are lucky enough to get into a homeless camp, that can be stabilizing for [homeless students] because it keeps them together. They know each other, they鈥檙e there for the summer and it helps with the transition back to school.鈥�
It also lightens the burden of finding summer child care, which can significantly hit a family鈥檚 budget and interfere with parents鈥� jobs, .
That鈥檚 one reason Evelyn Benson said she was thrilled when her daughter, 8-year-old Ayana, was invited to join the Blast camp last year.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 have anything planned in the summer because I work graveyard shift. So there鈥檚 not a lot we can do, you know, other than go to the little park ... no real big learning experiences,鈥� Benson said. 鈥淲hen they offered this, it was so wonderful ... because we need some backup during the summer to help [Ayana] keep refreshed.鈥�
Academic Focus
On a recent day at the camp, Davion Perry and his brother Jayden donned neon safety goggles to learn about the digestive system. They and about a dozen other children tracked the length of a stretched out model of a human intestine, then watched teacher Ken Smith cram it all back into its actual space in a body while describing how they work.
鈥淭he milk you drink, that calcium comes out in the small intestine. Vitamins A, B, C, D, all those you eat, they come out in the small intestine,鈥� explained Smith, an educator with SciPort Discovery Center, a museum in nearby Shreveport which partners with the camp for both classes and field trips. 鈥淪o, now we鈥檝e gotten you familiar with the process, we鈥檙e actually going see how this process works.鈥�
Then it got messy.
In small teams, the campers simulated a full digestion. They ground up cereal to represent teeth, then churned it to mush in a 鈥渟tomach鈥� bowl with water. Davion found it gleefully gross.
鈥淯gh!鈥� Davion said as he funneled it into a length of pantyhose and squeezed it to simulate nutrients pulled by the intestine.
But the rising 5th grader later confided, 鈥淚 like the activities best here. I just like it to be a surprise.鈥� He and his brother have been attending camp since last year, and they have an older brother who also attended until he aged out in middle school.
The lessons follow next-generation science standards and common-core math and reading standards, but are designed entirely in games and art projects. The science projects and experiments come from a grant from GSK Science in the Summer, which provides support and curriculums to community groups that serve high-risk students.
鈥淭hese children don鈥檛 get a lot of opportunities and they are such a pleasure to teach,鈥� said Heather Kleiner, SciPort鈥檚 director of the GSK Science summer program.
Rising Need
The need for summer programs like these is becoming more urgent.
The number of homeless children hit an all-time high this year, with nearly 1.36 million children living doubled up, in shelters, hotels, or on the street.
These students are at higher risk for both summer learning loss and school disengagement than their more securely housed classmates. And under the , states must track the educational progress of their homeless students, highlighting how well districts support them.
Yet the institute鈥檚 da Costa Nunez said the number of summer camps for highly vulnerable children has shrunk in recent years, with contracting state budgets and federal McKinney-Vento funds for homeless education. Sustainable academic summer programs often look like Bossier City鈥檚: a collaboration of city and district staff, as well as foundations and community groups.
For example, another Science in the Summer program holds two-day mini-camps at a county site that offers meals to homeless, migrant, and poor students in Chapparal, N.M.
鈥淲e鈥檙e like an on-site field trip,鈥� said site director Stephanie Hawkins. 鈥淲e鈥檝e seen it can make a long-lasting impact on STEM engagement in the fall.鈥�
Emily Benson鈥檚 daughter Ayana returned to the Bossier City camp this year.
On her first day she and her classmates started painting a 9-foot-long mural of the solar system in art class.
鈥淪he came home all excited and started naming off all the planets,鈥� her mom said, 鈥渁nd you know, it鈥檚 just good to see your children just light up because they learned something.鈥�
