INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES
AND PRACTICES OF TEACHERS
WHO WORK WITH
STUDENTS EXPERIENCING
HOMELESSNESS
Presenters
Kimberly Pickles, Principal
WJCC Public Schools
Doctoral Candidate: The College of William and
Mary
Stephanie Leek, School Social Worker
WJCC Public Schools
Objectives/Goals
Participants will be exposed to the perspectives
of classroom teachers regarding the challenges
they face educating students experiencing
homelessness
•Participants will be able to identify and
describe four areas related to supporting
homeless students in the classroom
•
Objectives/Goals Continued
Participants will identify ways that teachers can
change their instructional process to meet the
learning and emotional needs of students who
are homeless
•Participants will be provided with district-level
strategies utilized to support school-based staff
•
Pedagogical Practices of Teachers
of Homeless Students
Qualitative Research Field Study
•College of William & Mary, Williamsburg,VA
•
Purpose: To examine the pedagogical practices of
teachers who have instructed homeless students. To
explore the needs and strategies that teachers can
use to differentiate and accommodate their
instruction to maximize achievement for these
students.
•
Research Question
What are the pedagogical practices of teachers
who have had students who are homeless?
Specifically, once a teacher learns that s/he has
a student who has been identified as a student
who is currently homeless, what ways does s/he
change their instructional process to meet the
learning and emotional needs of the student?
Research
“According to state education agencies, the most
frequently reported educational needs of homeless
children are as follows: remediation/tutoring; school
materials and clothes; support services such as
counselors; after school/extended day/summer
programs to provide basic needs for food and shelter
and recreation; transportation; educational program
continuity and stability; and sensitivity and awareness
training for school personnel and students” (Rafferty,
1998, p.50)
Research
“Teachers of highly mobile students must develop the
skills to make them feel welcome while quickly weaving
them into classroom routines” (Holgersson-Shorter,
2010, p.33)
4 Steps to Support Students
1. “Heightening their awareness for the dynamics of the lives of children and
families who are homeless” (Swick, 2000; Powers-Costello and Swick, 2011)
2. “Engaging in experiences that deepen their sensitivity to the contextual
elements that are pervasive in being homeless” (Powers-Costello and Swick,
2008; Sleeter, 1993; Swick, 1996; Powers-Costellow and Swick, 2011)
3. “Developing an action plan that provides some cohesive direction to their
work” (Powers-Costello and swick, 2011).
4. “Helping teachers become active in building relations with students, parents,
colleagues, and community that promote school success” (Swick, 2000;
Powers-Costello and Swick, 2011).
Method


Collective ethnographic case studies
Research Design of advocacy/participatory
research


Group of individuals that are faced with the social
issues of the day and in which an action agenda for
reform within the schools would change the lives of
the homeless children in the classroom.
Critical Theory

Examines the changes and interactions related to
the improvement of the educational impact of
students who experience homelessness
Participants in Study #1

Three Elementary School Teachers
 5th
grade reading teacher “Jane”
 25+
 5th
grade math teacher “Mary”
 10
 1st
years teaching experience
grade teacher (all subjects) “Helen”
8

years teaching experience
years teaching experience
Suburban School District
Participants

Participants have worked with a student
or students that have experienced
homelessness while in their classrooms
 Living
in a women’s shelter with mother
and within the zone of the shelter
 Doubled up with friends and then moved
to hotel (in zone and then out of zone)
 Started in a home, doubled up out of city
and stayed school of origin
Interviews





Structured Interview Questions; Open Ended
Face to face
Focused on identifying the pedagogical
practices of teachers who instruct homeless
students
Focused on how they adjusted their instruction
for students experiencing homelessness
Recommendations to improved academic
success
Findings

Four categories/themes
 Choices
made by the parent to be able to
provide for their child(ren) or the lack of the
choices that they have available
 Perceptions of the classroom teacher
 Relationship development between the teacher
and the child and the teacher and the parent
for positive learning experience
 Available/recommended supports within the
school and classroom
Findings Con’t

Choices
 Lack
of ability to make choices
 “Parents
don’t normally come and that is just either
because they are working during the day and they
don’t have a means to get to the school or they are
at home taking care of the other kids. I do make
sure that I am sending home weekly communication
and would say that some are good about
communicating back and some are not. I would like
to think sometimes they have bigger things to worry
about.” -“Mary”
Findings Con’t

Choices

Home support is key


“I think that home support is a key thing and that you see
that the parents are just struggling to get by. It could be
the parents had no choice or the parents just aren’t
giving the kids the attention.” – “Jane”
Don’t hold parent’s choices against the child

“Parents of homeless kids seem to focus more on their
own problems which is probably understandable and the
kids seem to fall to the wayside because school’s
important, but not that important” – “Jane”
Findings Con’t

Choices
 Be
aware many parents have made difficult
choices and are doing the best they can so their
children have a good educational opportunity
 “I
don’t necessarily think that the parents intend to
not be supportive, it’s just that they are so busy with
everything else they have, whether it is just trying to
find a job or trying to find a home or trying to be
the parent, that sometimes school just comes last.” –
“Helen”
Findings Con’t

Perceptions

Preconceived ideas may present the opposite

“He was very bright, which surprised me, because I
thought, you know, a lot of times you want to think that
they are not academically there. But he was also very
bright. His big thing for me was that he was very
worldly.” –”Mary”
Keep in mind the child may be embarrassed by
their situation and may not have an opportunity to
act like a kid.
 Be open minded and not let stereotypes guide their
idea of a homeless child.

Findings Con’t

Relationship Development
 Promote
a positive learning experience for the
child
 Put in the time necessary to develop a
relationship
 Take the time, build the relationship, develop the
trust and understanding for the student and
family
Findings Con’t

Relationship Development
 “I
like it to be a trusting place where kids can
come to feel safe… kids come in and other
children need to accept children for who they
are and where they are as far as learning. You
know a lot of these kids come from situations
where this is their only safe place to be and you
don’t know what they are going home to, so I
want them to feel secure and safe.” – “Jane”
Findings Con’t

Supports
 Extra
instructional materials
 Services for remediation/extra hour or two of
consistency
 Free Breakfast and Lunch programs
 Field trips to support learning culturally
 Outreach programs invited into the school
 Human need items (clothes, coats, food)
 Counseling and health supports
 In-services for educators
Participants in Study #2

Three Elementary School Teachers
 4th
grade reading teacher “Laura”
 17
 5th
grade math teacher “Ann”
 10
 3rd
6

years teaching experience
years teaching experience
grade teacher (all subjects) “Vicky”
years teaching experience
Suburban School District
Participants

Participants have worked with a student
or students that have experienced
homelessness while in their classrooms
 Living
in a hotel and at school of origin
out of attendance zone
 Doubled up with grandparent but is at a
different “friend” house each night
 Transitional housing with hopes of moving
into permanent housing
Interviews





Structured Interview Questions; Open
Ended
Face to face
Focused on identifying the pedagogical
practices of teachers who instruct homeless
students
Focused on how they adjusted their
instruction for students experiencing
homelessness
Recommendations to improved academic
success
Observations

Differentiated Classroom Observation
Scale (DCOS)
 Recorded
instructional strategies/activities
 Levels of student engagement
 Levels of cognitive demand
 Director of learning (teacher driven or
student driven)
Findings




Challenges homeless students deal with
daily
Instruction of homeless students in the
classroom
Social supports available or
recommended
Strategies recommended by teachers
Findings Con’t

Challenges
 …she’s
lacking. Not that she is lacking for
love, but everybody else, they know
where they are going tonight. They know
when they get on that bus, they are going
home. She will tell me “I don’t know
where I’m going.” Like yesterday, “I don’t
know where I’m going. I gotta go see my
mama so she can tell me where I’m
going”. - Laura
Findings Con’t

Challenges
 “Do
you have everything? Let me give you
stuff.” I gave her the printouts. I have her
books. I gave her resources she needed
so she wouldn’t be different from
everybody else. I gave her materials to
help her with her book because I wanted
her to feel just as important as everybody
else. – Laura
Findings Con’t

Challenges
 Just
something as simple as tasting
foods… I talked about a mango last
week and he was the only student in my
class who hadn’t had a mango. So I
brought mangoes in and let’s eat them,
let’s talk about what they taste like. So
just being mindful that if I am going to
talk about an experience, I want you to
be a part of it. - Vicky
Findings Con’t

Instruction
 It
is collectively a team effort that even if
parents can’t give all that I would like
them to give, they at least give their love
and support so that when I need them to
give a hug to their child, they are there to
do it, or to celebrate with me about their
child doing well on a benchmark or even
if its just being able to get to class on
time, that it’s a celebration that they hear
from home as well as at school. - Ann
Findings Con’t

Instruction

You’re going to get the most bang for your
buck when you are sitting and working with a
child on a specific skill one on one, or two on
one, or three on one. Because is it specific to
that child and that child knows that this is
something that is still giving me trouble, they
feel comfortable asking questions whereas in
a large group, they may not. So a lot of my
time is spent meeting with students, going
over goals, going over data. - Ann
Findings Con’t

Instruction

I plan to the point where I’m reaching every
student, your higher level thinking all the way
down. So I mix different things in the lesson
where people can get it… and then others
will have to think about it and they have to
go above where we started. So when I do
my lessons…I think about “ok, lets see who is
going to get this, what are we going to do
here?” Bring them back to prior knowledge. Laura
Findings Con’t

Social Supports

The emotional aspect of you know I don’t have
what he has or you know, feeling ashamed of
where they come from. If you’re not confident,
then you can’t do anything well. Especially learn
because you’re always thinking about… you know
they may be hungry, they may be tired, they may
be concerned about where they are going when
they get home from school. They may be
concerned about going home from school alone
because mom is working to maintain the place
that they are in. So I think that probably the
emotional battles are probably the most difficult.
- Vicky
Findings Con’t

Social Supports

You have to have that open communication and that
background and I think seventeen years of experience
now I see something is going on with the poor little
baby who had clothes in a bag. She would have bags
of clothes in her hand and stuff because she’s going to
stay with somebody. Like the day when she had a fish.
A live goldfish. Well, she won that goldfish from
church. She stayed with somebody and she had to get
that gold fish home. So I didn’t fuss, didn’t punish her
or anything. Can’t carry it home on the bus, but we’ll
let mama take it home. You know these things right
here, the people think, “Well why didn’t you take it
home? Well, where am I gonna take it? Well, I didn’t
stay at my house last night.” - Laura
Findings Con’t

Social Supports

Where am I going to do my work at? You
know… I don’t even know where I’m going
tonight… Where… Where am I going to do
my homework if I’m going here with mama,
I’m going here with my aunt, I’m going here
with my grandma. I can’t do it all. Or if I’m
going to go stay with somebody else, they’re
going out and stuff, I gotta go with them. I
cannot sit down here. I gotta study, I don’t
have a place to study, I can’t study. There’s a
lot of people there in that house so when can
I study? - Ann
Findings Con’t

Strategies


Boost them and find ways they can excel
Boost them up as much as they can. Give them things
to shine. Just the little things you would be surprised,
just the little things that you do or say. Just the small
things mean a lot. Don’t set them apart… See what
you can do or say “How can I help you?” or “Do you
want me to give you a few minutes during class time or
the end of the day? You could have your time to do
your homework. Do you want to come in and have
lunch? That would be your own private time you can do
work.” I do allow her to come into the class. They have
a lunch bunch too and they come in and they work and
the three of them, they’ll talk and play and stuff
together away from everybody else.
Findings Con’t

Strategies

Anne recommends keeping mindful of where
they come from and where they go home to
each day. She recommends knowing what
they deal with when they go home each day.
If it is possible, go out to where they live, sit in
the car, and watch. She has often made this
recommendation to new teachers that she has
mentored to help them to develop a better
understanding of what the children face when
they leave the classroom at the end of the
day. It helps to have that understanding so
that you know the best way to help the child.
Findings Con’t

Strategies

Vicki makes the recommendation of teaching
all of the students in the class as individuals
and not as groups. By looking at a child as
an individual, you can reach more of your
students appropriately. You have to know the
child and their individual situations to know
how best to work with them and to lead them
to success. Because of the rapid maturity
level of an elementary student, you really
need to be aware of the individual child and
their needs.
Findings Con’t

Strategies
 Make
sure that supplies are on hand in the
classroom.
 Adjust the project so that most of it can be
completed at school and be willing to
provide time for the child to work on it in
the classroom.
 Utilize resources within the school that are
available. Through open communication
with the parent, encourage them to seek
assistance from the school social worker.
Findings Con’t

Strategies
 Some
schools have access to a local
program that provides food to families on
the weekends.
 Ann points out that it is important to plan
with a target in mind. This target allows
her to be able to “deliver quality
instruction and knowing the target also
sets them up for what it is that I need to
be able to do before I leave the
classroom”.
Findings Con’t

Strategies
Differentiation is a strategy used so that when
“students know where they are, they can get
themselves to a specific point and then you
can come through and guide them to the next
step. So it’s more about student centered
learning then it is teacher directed”.
 Research based strategies that involve
instructional strategies that use non-verbal
pictures can assist in breaking down a
concept to the very basic and then build it
back up.

Findings Con’t

Strategies
A
scaffolding approach and allowing a
student to “draw a concept out and
explain it to a partner. Vocabulary
building is absolutely key”.
 Vicki supports direct vocabulary as being
one of the best instructional strategies in
working with homeless students as well as
having a lot of group work so that a
student is more comfortable with
participating.
Findings Con’t

Strategies
Provide students with choices so that they can
do things they enjoy but can also take on a
challenge. Keep the classroom library up-todate with items that are on the student
interest levels. Mix fiction and non-fiction and
encourage them to chose topics they enjoy
and feel comfortable talking about.
 Using lecture, auditory, kinesthetic, partner
and group activities tap onto all of the
learning styles in the classroom and then
incorporate technology into the lesson.

Conclusions
These children have many needs beyond a
typical student
•Teachers need to be aware of background
circumstances and knowledge of the difficulties
and choices the family is facing
•Need to be aware of their preconceived
perceptions; Have an open mind
•Treat each situation individually
•
Conclusions
Develop relationships, build trust, safety, and
security within the classroom
•Additional supports are always needed
•
Williamsburg – James City County
Demographics
City of Williamsburg



Population: 15,167
16.1% living below
the poverty level
11.3 % unemployment
James City County



Population: 68,971
7.1 % living below the
poverty level
4.6 % unemployment
Available Resources




Avalon Shelter
Transitional housing program
Hands Together Historic Triangle
Faith Based Community
 Supports
the United Way Community Resource Center
 GWOM – Friend in Need program
 Shelter program – Community of Faith
WJCC Public Schools




Population: 11,265 (as of September 2013)
15 schools – 9 Elementary, 3 middle, 3 High
4 Preschool sites
Homeless identification trends








2005/2006 – 86
2006/2007 – 109
2007/2008 – 223
2008/2009 – 106
2009/2010 – 217
2010/2011 – 353
2011/2012 – 428
2012/2013 – 425
Available Resources




Project HOPE
School Social Work staff
Erase the Need Center
School Based Resources
Division Wide Interventions

Awareness and Education program
 Training
program for all school staff/employees
 Strategies
appropriate to the group, i.e. teachers,
administrators, registrars, bus drivers, custodians
 Resource
and Guidance manual – Connecting the Pieces:
Access, Stability, Success
 Outreach materials specific to school division
 Needs assessment completed in spring 2013 – will
guide continued interventions
Division Wide Interventions, Con’t

Homeless Education Coordinator
Case management services for high risk preschool students
and families
 Parent programming – both at school and in home
 Coordinates and facilitates a group compromised of
community service providers
 Needs assessment of preschool staff - results provided to
staff and used to guide activities
 Available for onsite consultation for staff and administration
 Provide continued training on M-V and strategies for
classrooms and interacting with families
 Link with school age programs

Stonehouse Elementary School



Located in James City County
Population: 728
27.08% free or reduced lunch
 19.30%

free
7.78 % reduced
Stonehouse Interventions





School Social Worker providing trainings and sharing
with teachers
Transportation vouchers provided by the PTA
SCA members volunteering in the community
Community Engagement
Sea Star Power Pack program
Interactions with different community groups and individuals
 Raising awareness with local churches, organizations,
Boy/Girl Scouts, and within the school
 A meaningful way for students to help
 Power Boosts

Sea Star Power Pack
Thank You
Kim Pickles
Principal, Stonehouse
Elementary School
WJCC Public Schools
picklesk@wjcc.k12.va.us
Twitter: @KOPickles
757-566-4300
Stephanie Leek
School Social Worker
WJCC Public Schools
leeks@wjcc.k12.va.us
757-634-9325