Board Approves Aid for Homeless Students : $70,000 Pilot Grant to Provide Instruction and Social Services at Venice School

To help deal with the growing problem of homeless children, the Los Angeles Board of Education on Monday unanimously approved a $70,000 pilot program to help students from homeless families succeed in school.

With funds provided by the Greater Los Angeles Partnership for the Homeless, a private nonprofit agency, the Coeur D’Alene Elementary School in Venice will offer homeless students additional counseling, social services and individualized instruction. Their parents will be given training to teach them how to help their children with schoolwork.

Of the 280 students Coeur D’Alene expects to enroll this fall, as many as one-third will come from homeless families in nearby shelters, according to Principal Beth Ojena.

School officials said they have no firm figures on the number of homeless children throughout the district, but the Greater Los Angeles Partnership estimates that there are at least 10,000 in the area, most of whom are not attending school regularly.

“The ones that are (attending school) have special needs,” said Susan Imai, housing director of the Partnership. “They are traumatized. They are not used to having a stable environment.”

As a result, Ojena said, many of the children tend to be overly aggressive and argumentative. They fight with other children and generally have more problems adjusting to school routines. In addition, because they attend school irregularly, the majority of the homeless students are two to three grade levels behind their peers, she added. Because many families move frequently from shelter to shelter, some students leave and re-enter school three or four times a year.

The grant will enable the school to provide extra nursing and psychological services, as well as to hire a special counselor who will work primarily with parents to help them obtain social services. The program will also feature computer-assisted instruction in reading and writing.

Imai said the Partnership hopes the Coeur D’Alene program will become a model for other schools that serve homeless children. The need for such programs is great because families are the fastest growing segment of the homeless population, she said, making up 28% of the homeless in the greater Los Angeles area.

The seven-member board later voted 5 to 2 to approve the concept of “agency fees” for non-union teachers.

The action means an election this fall among the district’s 32,000 credentialed employees, which include teachers, counselors and librarians, to decide the fee issue. A majority of the credentialed employees must approve the fees before they can be collected.

Union officials said the fees are aimed at preventing non-members from enjoying all the benefits of union representation without paying for them.

About 10,000 of the district’s teachers, librarians and counselors are not union members.

The fees would amount to about $350 a year per teacher, or 90% of full membership dues. Non-union teachers have objected to the fees on the grounds that they would lead to involuntary union membership. Some also say they fear the fees would be used to support political objectives with which they disagree.

A recent state Supreme Court ruling, however, barred teachers unions from using the fees over teachers’ objections for political activities. UTLA officials said the fees will only be used to pay for the cost of negotiations and other services.