LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – A majority of Lubbock ISD students are facing financial hardships. According to the Texas Education Agency, 17,318 students are considered “economically disadvantaged.”
Martha Dodge leads the district’s student behavior support team. They create programs and support services meant to help students fill the bare necessities.
“When kids have those basic things go unfilled outside of school, it definitely can have a ripple effect inside the school building,” Dodge said.
The director explains LISD uses a three-tiered system to monitor students across its campuses. It’s the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports. The system is used to help identify students who are struggling either academically, financially or behaviorally. Once a student is located the district then allocates resources to help them.
“We do have a process of identifying kids who need help behaviorally, and so, if there are kiddos who are demonstrating maybe some acting out behavior, we can identify them early and help put interventions in place to support them,” Dodge said.
She explains the district has several social workers who work alongside students and their families to get them connected to the things they need.
“I can think of examples from just last week where they were working with families who have kids in elementary, middle, and high school, helping connect them with uniforms,” Dodge said.
However, it can be harder when it comes to providing housing and when considering children in the school system who are considered homeless.
“When we hear homeless, we all picture someone who is living unsheltered on the street,” Dodge said. “That is not the definition we follow in Lubbock ISD, and it’s not the definition that any school district follows.”
Schools follow a federal law known as the 1987 McKinney-Vento Act. It outlines measures that ensure kids experiencing homelessness have immediate access to education and the resources that come with it.
Valerie Longoria, the Executive Director of Echo West Texas, explained what some of these instances can look like.
“There’s quite a bit of people who are ‘youth’ who are homeless, experiencing homelessness or couch surfing,” Longoria said.
She helps manage Lubbock’s locally-led Continuum of Care (COC). In that role, Longoria sees the gaps in services available to kids and teenagers.
“Sometimes it’s hard because if you have somebody who’s 16 and they don’t have housing, let’s say they want to go and check into a shelter, well they’re not old enough. So, what happens to them? There’s that gap,” Longoria said.
Longoria explains the COC works together with schools to balance the need, but the biggest difference is made in the classroom.
Dodge backs this claim up, calling teachers the ‘anchor’ for any point of contact between the district and its students.
“They’re the bedrock of everything that we do, and so when we talk about putting systems in place or interventions in place, we have to keep our teachers at the forefront of our mind because they’re the number one support for our students,” Dodge said. “They’re the people who have the greatest direct impact on kids every single day.”
When it comes to addressing homelessness and economic disadvantages, it’s never a one-size-fits-all solution. Dodge said the district will continue doing its best to help its students in need.
“We are always going through a process of refining and looking out what’s working for our kids and our campuses, what’s not, and make adjustments,” Dodge said. “And, so I expect that Lubbock ISD will continue to do that.”
She says the best way the community can help is through donating to area nonprofits so families in need will have access to those services.
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