Lee Pulaski, lpulaski@shawanoleader.com
Midyear numbers for homeless students in Shawano School District have some officials concerned.
Staff members tasked with being liaisons to homeless families informed the Shawano School Board on Monday that there have been 39 homeless students tallied in the first semester of the school year. The district recorded 48 students for the entire 2012-13 school year, down from 72 in 2011-12.
“This is a little alarming to me, having 39 students midway through the year,” said Lori Smits, director of pupil services and the district coordinator for the homeless liaisons. “We’re definitely seeing an increase over last year.”
The district is required by law to keep track of homeless students, Smits said.
The district’s definition of “homeless” includes students who are living on the streets, staying at emergency shelters or with other families.
“We have a lot of families who lived in motels and hotels, shelters, foster care placement,” Smits said.
Many of the situations are temporary, Smits said, and many of the 39 students in the district’s count are no longer homeless.
The district collaborates with local agencies to provide basic essentials such as food, clothing and school supplies to the students, said Jodi Gunther, social worker and homeless liaison at Olga Brener Intermediate School.
“When a student is identified, they come and talk to us,” Gunther said. “Oftentimes, we have families that go to three or four different schools before they show up at our door. It’s out there. It happens, and we see it daily.”
Even if a homeless family moves to another district, the district must continue to provide transportation if the students continue to attend Shawano schools, Smits said.
“Anything you can think of as a barrier, we have to eliminate,” Smits said, noting that the law is an unfunded mandate.
There are more than 15,000 students enrolled at public schools in Wisconsin that are considered homeless, Smits told the board, and students who are homeless are twice as likely to repeat a grade and four times as likely to drop out of school.
School Board member Marcia Yeager said many residents likely are not aware that homelessness is such an issue in Shawano.
“I don’t think the city realizes how many people we have that are homeless,” Yeager said. “I think if you got this out into the public, people would come forward (to help).”