CINCINNATI — Student homelessness was a major topic of discussion at a joint meeting Thursday night between city council and Cincinnati Public Schools.
Rebekah Beach, director of CPS' Project Connect Services, shared some of the challenges students are currently facing.
“We had a family last week of seven who was living in a construction site,” Beach said.
She said some families are doubling up. This time last year, 1,589 students were living with other families. That number is now up to 2,003.
Beach said the number of students living in shelters has remained the same. She thinks that’s because shelters have a set number of beds.
CPS has identified around 3,000 students who are experiencing homelessness this year, Beach said. They project that number will increase to over 4,000 by the end of the school year. There were nearly 3,500 homeless students at the end of the 2022-23 school year.
“We have families who will get housing and then lose housing year after year,” she said.
Beach said the most glaring concern is the number of students whose families are living inside their cars or outside.
“Our unhoused (students), last year at this time, was at 68 and so far this year we’ve served 284 unhoused students, which is a 318% increase,” Beach said.
She said many students sleep in motels and hotels. Some of the federal funds the district received during the COVID pandemic allowed them to increase the number of emergency hotel nights from three to six nights per school year. They can provide additional nights through their donor program.
Outside of homelessness, the district's nursing situation was also discussed Thursday night. COVID federal funds that allowed the district to place a nurse in almost every school building will run out this year. Superintendent Iranetta Wright said the district has 56 nurses, costing the district $5.8 million.
“Through COVID, people became very accustomed to having a nurse at every one of our buildings and that was really not normal,” CPS Board of Education President Eve Bolton said.
Bolton said health has always been a priority, but it might look different next school year.
“Even if we go back kind of where we were pre-COVID where everything was covered but not always within our end, but indeed with LPNs and with other health assistants,” Bolton said.
It’s an issue the district is working on with the city to make sure the CPS offers top-of-the-line nursing services. She said they haven't decided if they will need to cut the number of nurses.
"What we currently have, we cannot afford," Bolton said. "We have to offer enough services so the kids are safe."
Bolton is also working with the city on possible solutions to school dismissals. She said Metro is the most efficient bus service financially and allows the students to arrive at school at different times. The problem occurs when students get out of school because they all leave at the same time.
"That's a logistics problem for our neighborhoods whether it's a business district or residential neighborhood," Bolton said. "If you're going to have hundreds of teenagers waiting for the next bus that's an issue."
Bolton hopes to work with the city to see if there's a possibility to create more routes when school gets out to service the students to fix this issue.
"It is having a negative impact both on the kids getting home... and also on the families worrying whether or not they're getting home on time, but more particularly for the folks that live near and around our high schools," she said.
Bolton is also hoping the district can take control of their crossing guards. She said the city used to pay for them, but the district absorbed that financial responsibility about seven years ago. Now, the district pays for them but the city maintains control over where they are placed.
"If we're going to be paying for them it would be great if somehow they can be part of our school community, and part of our HR department, and we could maybe merge a number of our different kinds of part-time jobs," she said.
Bolton said she thinks the school district could use more crossing guards and work on expanding their time to increase their presence.
