Taxis give homeless students a lift to schools across Hampton Roads

VIRGINIA BEACH

Three children with backpacks tumbled out of the Black & White taxicab and sprinted up to the third floor of the MacThrift Motor Inn on the Oceanfront.

Every school day for the past two weeks, the school division has paid for taxis that take the students and their two older siblings to and from their schools in Green Run and Kempsville. The seven-member Parks family expects to be homeless through the holidays.

The children's mother, Carrie Parks, lost her job in 2008. Both parents have been in and out of the hospital this year, and their townhouse was repossessed the day school

started. Four weeks ago, the family moved to the motel.

"This time of year is the worst," said Donna Faison, a guidance counselor at Kempsville Meadows Elementary. She said the young Parks children are "resilient."

A federal law requires school divisions to provide transportation to help homeless children stay in the same school. Beach schools currently pay to transport 33 of its 532 homeless students and helped 134 last year. Those taxis cost the school division about $107,000, an expense homeless liaison Gay Thomas calls well worth it.

"They may change locations three, four, five times a year and never change schools," she said. "Even though they're sleeping somewhere different, they have the same teachers, classmates and friends."

Changing schools frequently sets students back academically and increases the chances of dropping out, according to national studies and educators who work with homeless students.

School divisions have been required since 2001 to provide transportation for homeless students under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, and the law encouraged such services even before that.

Federal funds help school divisions cover the cost, but school leaders usually have to supplement with other money.

In Suffolk and Norfolk, school buses are rerouted to add stops at shelters and hotels. When students have to travel beyond city lines, all five cities hire vans, cars or limos from LPR Limousine Service in Norfolk.

Nationally, school divisions provide students bus passes and subway cards; pay parents mileage or use county-owned cars. Taxis or car services are used less frequently, said Barbara Duffield, policy director with the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, there were nearly 800,000 homeless children in public schools during the 2007-08 year, a 17 percent increase over the previous year. North Carolina and Virginia saw increases of 33.8 percent and 19 percent, respectively.

Nationwide, schools report that transportation is the top barrier to the education of homeless children. But some school divisions don't inform families they have the option to stay at their original school, and others choose transportation based on costs and not the child's interests, Duffield said.

Before finding out about the taxis, Carrie and Gilbert Parks took turns ferrying their children to and from school. They drove from as far as Norfolk, waiting at the schools for each first and last bell to ring, a process that took up to eight hours a day. Food supplies began to dwindle as the couple covered gas costs for the two round trips a day.

The eldest, Miajah, 14, was frequently late to school and couldn't stay after for math and science tutoring. The younger ones began falling asleep in class.

Though being uprooted and bound to two small rooms stresses the family, the taxi service is helping them rebound.

Carrie Parks can get to job interviews during the day. And the three youngest aren't getting irritable in school anymore, Faison said.

Because they haven't had to transfer, several of the children have been able to maintain honor roll grades, Parks said.

Last week, her youngest burst into the family's room at MacThrift and immediately began handing out small Christmas gifts. Makayla, 6, had bought inexpensive jewelry and toys in the school holiday store with a few dollars donated by a member of the Kempsville Meadows Elementary community.

She gave her brothers, twins Maximus and Matthew, 8, matching tubs of squishy putty. They enveloped her in a bear hug, which she wriggled out of and ran away, smiling.

After getting their gifts, the younger children settled in around one of the double beds to do homework. Miajah took a nap inches away. Another sister, Mariah, 12, was in a van headed home from Larkspur Middle.

Matthew said he'd been in taxis in New York and thought the drivers were mean. Now he likes them.

"The driver asks what you did in school and doesn't mind if you talk, unlike my brother," Matthew said.

As contractors with the school system, the cab companies agree to do background checks on their drivers. When they pick up young children from school, the drivers sign them out and buckle them in the back seat.

The service won Jocelyn Range over. Last year, a taxi service shuttled her four children, including a pre-kindergartner.

"I didn't have to worry about whether the kids were safe," she said.

This year, Range's family is in transitional housing, and the children have switched to new home schools.

"I understand people may see it as a waste of money," she said. "There is no question about the need for this program. It's not trivial. These kids were able to retain normalcy."

Lauren Roth, (757) 222-5133, lauren.roth@pilotonline.com