[ti:Housing Important for Keeping Children in School]
[al:Education Report]
[ar:VOA]
[dt:2023-11-08]
[by:www.voase.cn]
[00:00.00]Last year, 40 percent of students in Los Angeles public schools missed more than 10 percent of the school year.
[00:12.05]That information comes from the Los Angeles Unified School District, which says about 429,000 students are enrolled in its schools.
[00:27.61]In addition to the attendance numbers, the district's website says its officials did not know where 2,500 students were.
[00:42.25]These students stopped attending class and did not appear to enroll anywhere else.
[00:51.54]Elmer Roldan is executive director of Communities in Schools of Los Angeles, a nonprofit group that aims to keep children in school.
[01:05.90]He said, "Housing is the biggest reason kids aren't going to school or we can't find them."
[01:16.07]The Associated Press (AP) recently reported on a case of one of those children whose housing situation led to problems at school.
[01:29.51]Fifteen-year-old Deneffy Sánchez has faced housing problems with his family for years.
[01:39.16]An AP reporter spoke with the teenager and his family.
[01:45.07]Deneffy lives with his mother Lilian Lopez and a 3-year-old sister.
[01:53.74]Lopez had been having a hard time keeping up with monthly rent payments in an earlier apartment.
[02:03.51]So the family of three shared a small living space with Fabiola Del Castillo, someone they did not know.
[02:14.86]As they fell behind on rent payments again, Del Castillo wanted to give up the apartment and pressured the family to leave. 
[02:27.97]To fight the threat of losing their home, Deneffy stayed in the apartment - and missed school.
[02:37.04]Federal data shows that the majority of students the government considers "homeless" have a place to stay.
[02:46.78]But the situation is often complex with shared roommates and an unsure future. 
[02:56.86]In Los Angeles, the city's superintendent said last spring that 13,000 students were homeless and 2,000 of them stayed in city shelters.
[03:13.12]In Deneffy's case, his family was struggling to stay in their small apartment.
[03:21.62]His father has not been with them. His mother immigrated from Guatemala 22 years ago.
[03:31.36]In 2020, after his mother gave birth to Jennifer, his sister, the family was homeless.
[03:40.92]That year, schools across the country closed because of the spread of COVID-19.
[03:49.48]Deneffy tried to attend seventh-grade classes online through Zoom but said he could not pay attention.
[03:59.42]"I felt like they were judging me," he said.
[04:04.32]By ninth grade, classes became more difficult, and his family did not have internet service at home.
[04:13.55]Deneffy's grades crashed. His school offered help with homework.
[04:20.68]But AP reported the boy said that he really wanted a therapist.
[04:27.73]Deneffy spoke to the school's "psychiatric social worker" to see if she could help him get mental health counseling.
[04:39.62]But demand for such help increased sharply during the pandemic.
[04:45.73]In 2021, an opinion study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 42 percent of high school students said they felt sad or hopeless a lot compared to 28 percent ten years before.
[05:07.73]After leaving the apartment shared with Castillo, Deneffy's family had another bad experience sharing a place. 
[05:20.29]Then they found a place where they could live without roommates through an old friend.
[05:28.60]The apartment is small and costs $1250 to rent each month. 
[05:38.42]That is more than Deneffy's mother makes from government assistance and cleaning jobs.
[05:47.36]The 15-year-old now has a laptop computer provided by the school and a wireless connection to help with schoolwork.
[06:00.20]He has the most trouble with writing. "I never know where to put the commas and other punctuation," he said.
[06:12.32]He also sees a therapist at school once a week. But he is worried that his family's new living situation might change. 
[06:25.54]His mother needs to find a full-time job to meet the rent payments.
[06:32.70]Speaking of his mother, Deneffy says she tells him not to worry. 
[06:39.86]"But I do," he said. "What if we don't have money, and we get kicked out again?"
[06:49.52]I'm Mario Ritter, Jr.