The Invisible Student

Walk with Ambrose down the Washburn hallways. His black sneakers with the red swoosh glide across the smooth floors. In his baggy pants and black T-shirt, he looks like most of the other kids, except these are the same clothes he wore yesterday. See that girl there, the one in the burgundy sweater, tight jeans, and checkered shoes? Last year, as a junior, she lived in three different houses because her mom kept ducking bills and skipping rent. Got to the point where the girl wouldn’t unpack when they arrived at a new place because she figured they’d soon move. Or that girl there, the skinny one with the Kaboom T-shirt? A sophomore, she’s lived in four different places already this school year—bouncing from her mom’s to her aunt’s back to her mom’s and then to her grandma’s—all because mom, thirty, and grandma, forty-five, disapproved of the girl getting pregnant at fourteen. The stress caused her to miscarry. Check out the guy in the letter jacket that Ambrose just gave a “What up”? Senior starting linebacker, homecoming king nominee, one of the most popular kids in school. Two years ago, he was sleeping in apartment entryways, crashing at friends’ places. Mom was a crack addict. He was selling drugs to buy food for his younger siblings. These kids blend into the faces streaming through the hallway. Invisible, unless you know otherwise.

There are twenty-one “homeless” or “highly-mobile” kids like Ambrose among Washburn’s student body of 1,080. The face of homelessness has changed. Today, homeless women and children far outnumber homeless men across the state. In Minneapolis alone, Ambrose is one of 3,034 K–12 kids identified by the district as homeless or highly mobile.

These kids don’t have a home, but they go to school. In its most comprehensive study, Wilder Research found in 2006 that 89 percent of unaccompanied youth statewide are enrolled in school. That figure is even higher for homeless and highly mobile children still with their parents. For many of them, school is the only stable aspect of their lives. And their only ticket to break the cycle of poverty.

That puts an enormous challenge on school districts. They have responded with dedicated resources and staff. But it may not be enough.

The McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act identifies students as homeless or highly mobile if they are living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, campgrounds, cars, parks, abandoned buildings, shelters, or doubled up with other families. A disproportionate number are of color. In a state where less than 20 percent of the general population is of color, 78 percent of homeless youth in the metro area are black, Native American, Hispanic, Asian, or of mixed race, according to Wilder Research. Almost half of Minneapolis’s 3,034 homeless or highly mobile K–12 students are in grades K–5, about 20 percent are in grades 6–8, and a little more than 30 percent are in grades 9–12. In St. Paul, 56 percent of the 1,089 homeless students are K–5, 26 percent are in 6–8, and and 23 percent are in 9–12. They are not limited to certain buildings; they are at every elementary, middle, and high school in St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Margo Hurrle’s job with the Minneapolis school district is to find those school-age kids. In her first year, 1991, when federal law required schools to enroll homeless students, Hurrle found 50 kids, a handful of those in shelters, the majority out on the streets; this past year, she saw 4,000 children in the Minneapolis shelters. Families with young children are the fastest growing segment of the homeless population. “I definitely think homelessness is worse for families and children today,” Hurrle says.