Here’s a number for you to roll around for a moment.
2,131.
What does it represent? It’s the number of homeless students enrolled in the Amarillo Independent School District.
It came to the fore today during a lunch meeting of the Rotary Club of Amarillo. Kimber Thompson, who works with homeless students for AISD, delivered the figure today during the lunch program. I didn’t poll everyone in the room, but my sense is that it caught most of Rotary Club members by surprise.
Here’s a little more perspective and context for you to ponder.
AISD enrolls about 30,000 students at all grades, which means that a little less than 10 percent of its students are considered “homeless.”
I’ve got one more to thing to think about, and this comes from Thompson.
Amarillo’s student homeless population is the fifth-largest of any school district in the state. That’s not a per capita figure, according to Thompson in response to a question from one of the Rotary Club members. The number represents a raw number of total students.
Fifth-largest number! Of any district in the state. I don’t suppose I need to tell you that AISD is far from the fifth-largest public school district in Texas.
Why am I writing about this? It seems to me that we have been handed a fascinating campaign issue for the city’s council candidates and those who are running for the AISD Board of Trustees to discuss as they campaign for votes.
Is there a joint solution to be found here to deal with this problem? Must there be such a large number of students who are considered homeless?
Thompson took time today to explain how AISD determines a student’s homeless status. Children might actually live in their family vehicle; or they might be camping out somewhere in tents; or they might be sharing a house with other extended family members or with friends; they might belong to families in transition.
They all qualify as “homeless.”
Thompson said AISD doesn’t want to transfer students from school to school, as so many homeless students have been shuttled between and among schools too often already. Such rapid and frequent change disrupts them emotionally, not to mention impairs the lessons they are supposed to be learning in the classroom.
I’ll acknowledge that before today I had no idea of the number of homeless students in the Panhandle’s largest public school district.
It was a stunning revelation, one that in my view is tailor-made for some candidates running for municipal and school district public offices to offer some recommendations — if not outright solutions.
Amarillo, I believe we have a crisis on our hands. And we need to talk about it openly — and with extreme candor.