"WHERE HAVE ALL THE CHILDREN GONE?"
Lisa Ann Napp
MSA Student
The University of North Carolina , Chapel Hill
lnapp@unc.edu


National studies reveal that children presently account for 21% of America's homeless population (The National Childrens Defense Fund, 1996).The numbers have doubled from 327,000 children in 1990 to 744,000 children in 1993. This trend is currently at our own doorstep. Across the state of North Carolina, throughout the South, in cities and in towns, homeless children are entering public schools in unprecedented numbers.

Teacher's have few educational and community resources to address the complex set of needs this growing student population demands and they are not trained to recognize the evolving and sometimes hidden signs of homelessness within their student population.
Homeless children can no longer be stereotyped as the visible street urchin pan handling on city streets. Homeless children are transient due to a variety of reasons currently contributing to the displacement of families. A parent may be running from an abusive partner or a custody battle, a parent's addiction to drugs, current welfare reforms, parent's job loss, and the inability to pay medical bills, are presently effecting the loss of stable housing.

It is a challenge to educate students who bounce from school to school. Homeless students are twice as likely to have nutrition and hygiene problems, which, with their low self esteem, hinders their ability to learn compounding their low self esteem. Teachers lack adequate time to assess the needs of homeless children because they vanish, a factor that makes it highly unlikely for them to benefit from Title 1 participation. Moreover, homeless children move frequently, which serves to inhibit social development and non-disruptive classroom behaviors by eliminating the opportunity for homeless students to establish long term relationships with peer groups and or adults.

The homeless student is caught in a cycle of educational and social limbo.

Implications:
* School districts across North Carolina and the Southeast need to address the issues of educating homeless children effectively and immediately.
* Homeless children are in need of advocacy groups that will bring attention to their plight in public and political arenas.
* Teachers need support to meet the needs of the homeless student. The basic areas of support needed are: staff development to increase teacher sensitivity, and stress management techniques.
* Establish on site specialized programs, e. g. school within a school, Communities in Schools, to specifically address the education of homeless children accompanied by the appropriate funds to properly advance the specialized programs
* Strong and effective volunteer programs at each LEA to help with health assessments, grooming needs, clothing necessities, and child advocacy issues.
* A universal technology system to access important educational data while the student is transient in order to avoid re-starting the individual's evaluation process each time the student enters a new educational environment and to provide critical inoculation information. This system must protect the individual's right to privacy from non-educational tampering.

Cenziper, D. (1997, January). Homeless in School, The Charlotte Observer , pp. A1, A16
National Childrens Defense Fund. (1996). Poverty in america.