Teachers try to aid, but transient city students ‘just gone’

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JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) — When Greater Johnstown Elementary School teacher Stacy Ford receives her class roster before the beginning of the year, she expects that at least a handful of the 20 or so students listed will not show up – and more will be gone by the end of classes.

Bracing for that reality is part of her preparation for any new term and has been for some time. The second-grade educator has taught at the district for more than two decades.

That constant turnover “creates havoc” for everyone involved, Ford said.

“Sometimes they leave and you don’t even know they’re leaving,” she added. “They’re just gone.”

Ford is a 1990 graduate of Greater Johnstown High School who became a teacher because she enjoys helping children learn and wanted to make her community a better place. That’s why she set her sights on her alma mater after college.

“That was always my goal,” Ford said, “to get back into teaching there.”

When Ford joined the staff, she said, there wasn’t much of a transient population, and when she was a student, she graduated with nearly the same cohort of students she’d met when she started kindergarten.

That’s not the case anymore.

Within the past three years, Greater Johnstown School District has seen 2,181 students enroll and 854 leave. The district has a total annual enrollment of roughly 3,000 students.

Nearly 400 new arrivals were from the Philadelphia School District – but dozens of others came from New York, New Jersey, Florida, Virginia and several other states, as well as almost 50 different Pennsylvania learning agencies. Additionally, the majority of the new learners had never attended school at Greater Johnstown, and those who left moved to other Pennsylvania institutions.

“It’s crazy how many kids enter the school and then leave,” Ford said.

‘It’s hard with the little kids’

Michael Silk, a reading and science educator at the middle school, has seen the same trend in his building. He’s been teaching in the district for 29 years and, early on, didn’t see many learners transferring in and out.

Recently, though, turnover has become the norm.

“In the last 10 years it has flip-flopped,” Silk said. “You’re constantly dealing with a transient population.”

As for why there’s such a level of transiency at Greater Johnstown, Ford said she’s had parents tell her that if they receive public housing and live in Johnstown for a year, then they’ll be moved up on the waiting list elsewhere in the state, such as in Philadelphia.

Silk said he has heard, like many in this area, that there are advertisements for housing in Johnstown placed in other cities. Area housing entities told The Tribune-Democrat that that is not happening.

The fluid nature of the classrooms throughout the district can be stressful for students and teachers alike.

“It’s hard with the little kids,” Ford said. “They build a family because they’re together for hours and hours.”

For her, the strain of losing students is just as bad. Not only does she think of her students as “her kids” each year, but also she dedicates a lot of time to their education.

“It’s emotionally stressful as a teacher to put so much effort into students and then lose them,” Ford said. “You spend a lot of time working hard to make kids better learners and emotionally sound.”

‘Organized chaos’

She gave the estimate of losing three or four students each year. That’s in addition to the roughly five who don’t show up for class – with others shifted into those spots.

Ford said that, if the same applies to the about 60 or more classrooms in the building, that means 180 students transfer out each year.

Silk experiences a similar rate of uncertainty at the middle school. He finds teaching in that environment “emotionally draining” and expects to lose four or five students each year.

“You’re always trying to operate in the best phase of organized chaos,” Silk said.

He added that he tries to get to know the students quickly and build respect quickly.

“You try to give them fist bumps and pats on the back and just make them know, when they come in, they’re valued,” Silk said.

As an additional way to connect with the students, he has pocket charts on the students’ desks they can use to quietly let him know what kind of day they’re having.

Each time the learners step into his class, they can reset the chart – green is “good,” yellow is “neutral,” and red means they’re having a rough time. If a child’s indicator is in that last slot, Silk said he might go easier on them if they have an outburst in class or pull them aside and suggest they go talk to someone, such as the guidance counselor.

‘You wonder where they went’

Sometimes the teachers at Greater Johnstown find out just 24 hours in advance that a child is leaving.

“We hear from a student, ‘I think we’re moving this weekend,’ and we never hear from them again,” Ford said. That happens at least once per year, she said.

When Silk finds out a student is leaving, he said he jokingly tells those he’s built a good relationship with that they aren’t allowed to go. That’s his way of coping with the situation, although he added that the last thing he wants to do is hold a child back.

Just because a learner has left doesn’t mean she or he is forgotten.

“You think about them when they’re gone,” Ford said. “You wonder where they went – how they’re doing. Are they getting the same quality of education?”

Students occasionally leave and return to Greater Johns-town during the same school year. Emotionally, it’s a relief to see the child come back, Ford said, but often she finds “they’re not any further along educationally as when they left,” which leads to some frustration.

The teacher said it’s hard to improve the schools when the teachers don’t work with the students continuously.

Silk’s strategy is to welcome them back into the class and try not to make much of a deal about the transition – in order to avoid further affecting a student’s education.

“I don’t know that we can do anything as teachers,” Ford said, “except to accept the students as they come into our rooms and help them as much as we can.”

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