School's out for Summer!

The stampede

The last days of school are filled with stress on students and teachers alike.  For the teachers, it is a sprint to finish report cards, say "good-bye" to students, clean out classrooms, return texts to the library, and everything else.  It was truly a sprint, because all the tasks were a finish line that depleted teacher resources, both physical and emotional.

Hard on the students?  In what possible way could leaping into summer vacation be difficult? Daylight-filled soccer games with friends? Time to ride bikes through neighborhoods?  Eat watermelon?

That is a small percentage of student populations enjoying summer with those activities.

But the last percentage, summer is horrific.

These students live in small apartments, surrounded by relatives from Mexico.  There might be 20+ people sleeping on the floor, with children in corners on a blanket.   Postage size green play areas cannot accommodate all the children from those apartments.  Green grass is trampled to dirt. Parents take them to a park?

Really?

Parents are working two jobs.  Cleaning houses, picking produce, working as maids in hotels, and other low paying jobs.  Food?  Slim pickings there.  Who watches the little children?  The bigger children watch them.

Once school ends, so does the free breakfasts and lunches.  Students had come to school, having not eaten since the last school lunch.

Once school ends, a structured classroom, which provides friends and learning, disappear.

How to change these conditions?

Once school ends, students may move back to Mexico or out closer to the produce fields, where they can also pick strawberries, beans, melon, and just about every food product that they cannot have in their house. Side by side with their parents, students learn to pick quickly. Depending on the policies of the produce companies, students and their parents may or may not keep or eat some of the produce.

Those students, those precious students have tears in their eyes when they leave the school grounds.  And so does the teacher.***

***There are programs that provide free food, clothing, and activities, but not every family can access them.