Helping educators see homelessness through eyes of the students

DALLAS (SMU) – Imagine yourself in a shelter for homeless women and children – the noise, the communal meals, the anxiety that starts every day when the school bus driver assumes you are going to be trouble. That’s the opening for a new comic, Uprooted: Voices of Student Homelessness, that tells the stories of four students experiencing homelessness from their points of view.

Demonstrating the fear, shame and lack of stability that many students and their families experience, the book is the brainchild of SMU education researchers Alexandra Pavlakis and Meredith Richards, and former SMU postdoctoral fellow, Kessa Roberts, now assistant professor at Utah State University. The researchers have spent a combined 30 years studying how homelessness affects students and the best ways to help them succeed in school.

Their comic aims to provide a compelling snapshot of the diverse realities that students experiencing homelessness face, countering the myths that surround them and deepening educators’ policy awareness and sensitivity to the issue. 

“We are passionate about research,” says Pavlakis, associate professor of education policy and leadership in SMU’s Simmons School of Education and Human Development. “But we’re equally passionate about helping students. Charts and graphs don’t hook people the way narratives do.”

“We wanted to find a way to share our data with the educators and nonprofit workers who interact the most with students experiencing homelessness.”

^{SMU education researchers Alexandra Pavlakis (left) and Meredith Richards (right) found a unique way to share their research on how to help students experiencing homelessness. Instead of using charts and graphs, they created a graphic novel, Uprooted: Voices of Student Homelessness, to help educators better understand how to help these vulnerable students. Pavlakis and Richards are associate professors of education policy and leadership in SMU’s Simmons School of Education and Human Development. Photo courtesy of SMU.}

The book was inspired by the team’s research. For example, according to a research brief Pavlakis, Richards, and Roberts co-authored, 1.2 million schoolchildren were homeless in the 2020-21 school year, the most recent statistics available. In Texas, 97,200 students were homeless, 20,000 of them in Dallas. Both statistics are underestimates, Richards says. Students and families rarely self-identify as homeless to school officials due to the stigma attached to the term.

Research also shows that students experiencing homelessness tend to have lower attendance, poorer achievement, higher rates of drop-out, and lower rates of graduation, Richards says.

The U.S. Congress passed the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act in 1987, which defines students experiencing homelessness as those who “lack a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence.” The majority, 77 percent, share housing or “double up” with someone else due to economic hardship or loss of housing, according to EdResearch for Action.

McKinney-Vento is designed to help students succeed in school by guaranteeing their rights, Pavlakis says. Research shows that students’ education outcomes improve when schools follow policy guidelines:

• Students must be enrolled immediately in school, even if they are missing documents or have missed deadlines.
• Students may stay in their school of origin, even if their housing changes.
• When requested, districts must provide transportation to and from school.
• Schools must remove barriers to full participation in school activities such as fees, required uniforms and fines.

“We know that interactions with educators often shape a student’s day,” Pavlakis says. “Schools track academic achievement, but that’s not the only way school personnel have an impact on students’ lives.”

Here’s how researchers say schools can help students experiencing homelessness:

• Prioritize identifying students experiencing homelessness to help them access resources.
• Collaborate and share data with community providers to ease access to support.
• Build relationships with trusted adults in students’ lives.
• Avoid stigmatizing students.

Implementation of McKinney-Vento is patchy across the country, researchers say. And families often don’t know their schoolchildren have rights.

“We hope Uprooted resonates with readers in a way that numbers don’t,” Richards says. “We’d like to see kids have access to their rights, along with more empathy and compassion.”

Uprooted is available at no cost here. The book was written and illustrated by Ashley Robin Franklin and edited and designed by Kacy McKinney. The comic was funded in part by the Spencer Foundation and American Institutes for Research.