Small but Enthusiastic Turnout : School Bell Rings for Children of Homeless Camp

They appeared no different from the other students who got off the big yellow buses at Betty Plasencia School near downtown Friday morning. They were neatly dressed and as rambunctious as most elementary schoolchildren are on their first day at a new school.

But these 17 youngsters came from the “urban campground” for the homeless several miles away, bused in by the Los Angeles Unified School District to be fed, examined and enrolled. They were only a few of the 70 or so children living with their families in the city-operated camp whom the district has pledged to bus to school every day beginning Monday.

On Friday, district officials had hoped to bring 40 children to enroll at Plasencia, an ethnically diverse year-round school with 1,500 students. But for one reason or another, most stayed behind.

Indeed, for all its good intentions, the sign-up effort, orchestrated by school board member Jackie Goldberg, served to highlight some of the many obstacles facing homeless parents and their school-age children.

Lack of clean clothes appeared to be a major hindrance, a district official said. Some camp residents said they did not have time to prepare for school because they only learned of the sign-up the day before.

Other parents did not put their children on the bus because they were “afraid of something new” or were too depressed to make the effort, homeless spokesman Ted Hayes said.

For many of the children who did enroll Friday, Plasencia was the third or fourth school they have attended in just a few years. And with the homeless camp scheduled to disband next month, their stay at the school is likely to be temporary as well.

But Goldberg, in whose district Plasencia is located, said the effort was worthwhile, no matter how long--or how short--the time the children will be there.

“There are six weeks of school between then (the camp’s scheduled closing Sept. 25) and now. That’s six weeks of education they might not get any other way, six weeks of routine in their life, six weeks of guaranteed breakfast and lunch. I think that’s worth doing,” she said.

On Friday, the children who made it to school were clearly not worrying about the uncertain future.

“I like school,” said Shanda Williams, 11, in between bites of the hot breakfast of eggs and sausage patties the school provided. “I like math and spelling tests and biology. And I like to read.”

She was accompanied by her mother, Spanky Williams, 28, and her 4-year-old brother, Edward. The three of them have been living at the campground for a month. Before that, they had been staying in a Venice church shelter, Williams said.

Plasencia is Shanda’s third school and, her mother hopes, a place where the child can put down some roots.

“I want to get me a place in this neighborhood,” Williams said. “I don’t want to keep switching my kids from school to school--it gets them confused.”

Plasencia was chosen, district officials said, because it is the closest year-round campus to the campground that can accommodate the extra students. Because of the year-round schedule, which means that some students attend school in the summer months, the children could start a new term beginning Monday, instead of waiting until September.

Teresa, 9, whose mother did not want to give her last name, said Plasencia would be her fifth school. She and her family came to Los Angeles five months ago, when marital problems led her mother to leave their father and their Phoenix home. She and her three brothers and sisters have not attended school since March, district officials said.

Her mother, Nancy, said she boarded the school bus with her children reluctantly. In fact, they were the last of the four families to get on board. That morning she had to scrounge around for something clean for the children to wear. She was also concerned about finding a place for them to do homework, because there is no place to study at the campground, except in bed--which is a cot under a canopy--or at the picnic tables where they eat their meals.

The youngsters were also in various stages of recovering from the chicken pox, which had been rampant among the children in the camp. District doctors on hand to perform checkups, however, pronounced the entire group of homeless children fit to enter school.

June Walker, who brought four children to the school, was more adamant about making Plasencia a temporary stop. She has been homeless since March, when she said she was released from jail and lost her rented home in Sylmar. Her husband is looking for work. As soon as they scrape together enough money to rent another apartment, she plans to return to Sylmar.

“I didn’t want to send my children here,” she said. “I want to get out of the camp and send them to a regular school back home as soon as possible. It would be a waste to come here and get them transferred somewhere else again.

“But it may not be a couple of weeks before I get out of here,” she said. “It might be a couple of months. So I thought I better get them into school. They need it.”