Expand<\/a><\/p>\nOnce, Mafi was Cara \u2014 a smart kid from a poor family about to enter an uncertain world of school.<\/p>\n
She grew up with five siblings in the south Los Angeles community of West Athens, which at the time was an economically challenged area. Mafi had family support and was held to high standards, but her education was inconsistent.\u00a0She said she bounced between rigorous Catholic school, when her mother could afford it, and back to public schools that, at the time, were struggling.<\/p>\n
But Mafi kept bouncing, educationally, well into adulthood. She finished her schooling with a doctorate in education.<\/p>\n
\u201cI share that story with our sixth graders,\u201d Mafi said. \u201cYes, I lived in a bad area. But, no, that didn\u2019t stop me. And it shouldn\u2019t stop them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attitude, of course, is hard to quantify. And in Garden Grove Unified, it\u2019s deployed against challenges that are often all too tangible.<\/p>\n
Gangs and violence aren\u2019t an idle threat in some of the neighborhoods that feed students into Garden Grove Unified. Neither is hunger. At many of the district\u2019s 67 schools, more than 8 in 10 students eat breakfast and lunch on campus. Language, too, can be a barrier; about a third of the district\u2019s nearly 38,000 students qualify as \u201cEnglish learners,\u201d meaning their parents speak a language other than English at home. (Spanish and Vietnamese are the most common non-English languages at Garden Grove Unified, but in all, at least 59 languages are spoken at home.)<\/p>\n
Kids in the district often face other challenges, big and small, that might not apply in wealthier communities. Some lack access to Wi-Fi or new technology, or they live in houses that are so crowded there isn\u2019t much space for studying and homework. Many don\u2019t have anyone in their families who can help with their homework if they need it.<\/p>\n
Mafi said teachers and others acknowledge it all without letting any of it become an excuse.<\/p>\n
\u201cSympathy? No. But empathy? Yes, we feel empathy,\u201d Mafi said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality is students in poverty don\u2019t need their lives to be easier. They need to work hard to make their lives better.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmpathy is about caring and loving. Sympathy can sometimes be about expecting less,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/OCR-L-RICHPOOR-0215.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
New era of challenge<\/p>\n
Garden Grove Unified isn\u2019t the only local school district on the upswing. Over the past decade, the county average for college readiness has jumped nearly 20%.<\/p>\n
Garden Grove Unified, also, isn\u2019t the only local district to improve in the face of challenges related to money and language. Some 11.1% of all K-12 students in the county, about 48,000 students in all, are low-income according to the new census report.<\/p>\n
And, critically, Garden Grove isn\u2019t the only district that\u2019s becoming a resource for a range of services that aren\u2019t traditionally connected to school.<\/p>\n
Since the pandemic, Garden Grove Unified has implemented ASPIRE, a multiprong program that links therapists and social workers to every school in the district. Students who are teetering academically or who are getting in trouble too much \u2014 or who show sudden changes in behavior \u2014 are urged to visit with ASPIRE counselors. A parent simply needs to sign off, and the care is free.<\/p>\n
\u201cMental health doesn\u2019t have anything to do with income. And it doesn\u2019t really have a stigma anymore. It\u2019s just part of being healthy,\u201d said Marci Loo, principal of Izaak Walton Intermediate in Garden Grove.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we see it as just part of helping the students, and their families, in every way we can,\u201d Loo added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not going to learn much if all their needs aren\u2019t taken care of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Combined, all of the offerings at Garden Grove Unified \u2014 everything from food and after-school clubs to sports and homework assistance \u2014 can keep a student on a campus from as early as 7 a.m. to as late as 7 p.m. Libraries open early and stay open late. Teachers and others are often available to talk.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have all of these things to keep kids busy and learning,\u201d Loo said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s also about joining something. If a gang offers something, like a feeling of belonging, we have to offer a sense of belonging, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet, going forward, that comprehensive help, and the attitude it represents, might not be enough to keep the momentum going for lower-income students.<\/p>\n
For one thing, being poor is getting tougher.<\/p>\n
Last month, new federal rules kicked in that will make it harder for families to qualify for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, which, in turn, could make it harder for some kids to get fed at home. Also last month, the federal government discontinued pandemic-era assistance that helped pay for health insurance, driving up insurance premiums for millions of families around the country, including many who are close to low-income. There\u2019s even a proposal from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development that could change the rules to receive homelessness assistance in a way that might force several hundred local families, including many with children, back to shelters or the streets.<\/p>\n
All of those changes translate into more potential stress for lower-income students. And that, experts say, can be a drag on learning.<\/p>\n
Federal help in safety net items \u2014 such as food and shelter and health care \u2014 does directly impact students. A study from the Los Angeles Unified School District, for example, found that lost access to dental care was the strongest predictor of student absences.<\/p>\n
But John Rogers, a professor of education at UCLA who has studied the link between money and learning, suggested a bigger issue in the new war on poverty is about self-image and expectation.<\/p>\n
When anybody, lower-income or otherwise, is treated with hostility, they tend to lose confidence and the belief that they\u2019re capable of things like education and attainment.<\/p>\n
\u201cRelative definitions of poverty focus on inequality, perceptions of well-being, and views of social mobility,\u201d Rogers wrote via email. \u201cMy sense is that \u2026 this has the greatest effect on how students view school, and how they view opportunities in broader society.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s exactly the attitude Mafi has pushed hard to vanquish in her district.<\/p>\n
And, this year, there\u2019s a new wild card: the federal effort to deport millions of people.<\/p>\n
Cara\u2019s parents, Adella and Leo, said they\u2019re legal U.S. residents and that Cara, born in Arizona, is a U.S. citizen. Still, Adella refused to disclose her last name or her specific neighborhood because she\u2019s afraid of becoming a target of immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n
Mafi, of Garden Grove Unified, suggested that fear isn\u2019t unfounded. She said the district includes many families who include people without proper documentation, and that she is aware of families who have lost members in immigration sweeps, sometimes taken into custody in front of children.<\/p>\n
Fear of immigration enforcement, she added, might be prompting some families to disconnect from public schooling.<\/p>\n
\u201cUsually, our (student population) grows by a few hundred by this time of year. But this year we\u2019re down from the start of the year. That\u2019s a result of what\u2019s happening,\u201d Mafi said.<\/p>\n
Beyond the extremes, she added, is a constant feeling of fear. That feeling, if it continues unabated, can distract even the best students.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur students are primarily born here, so they\u2019re not at risk. But they\u2019re afraid to let their parents leave the house,\u201d Mafi said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes it affect what they can and can\u2019t achieve? No. But does it require us to offer additional outreach? Yes. That is a frightening thing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cara, age 4, of Santa Ana is happy and energetic and, by all indications, super smart. Her parents,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,15,23,100,1997],"class_list":{"0":"post-179134","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news","11":"tag-education","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-schools"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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