Gail Jones at the Transitional Learning Center for Homeless Children
with students (from left) Jasmine Coleman, Amairany Chulin Gentry, and Jesse
Scott
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Coming Home to the Classroom
The children who walk into Gail Jones’s fourth-, fifth-,
and sixth-grade classroom face challenges that reach far beyond
the rigors of school. These children live in shelters, or in their
cars, or doubled up with another family. Some of them have fled
a dangerous home situation with nothing but the clothes on their
back; some don’t know where they will sleep that night.
For these children, a teacher like Jones (BA, Art, ’74) and
a school like Transitional Learning Center for Homeless Children
in Stockton can provide a haven of much-needed stability.
First, says Jones, she deals with the physical needs of new students.
Each student gets a welcome packet with necessities such as soap,
toothbrush, and toothpaste. They also get clothes, food, and medical
care.
The goal of the Transitional Learning Center is to help students
transition into traditional schools. The challenge is that homeless
children often get lost in the system. Many are grade levels behind
due to sporadic attendance.
Jones starts with the basics: language, reading, comprehension,
and writing. The children are assessed when they first walk in
the door and then 60 days later, if they are still at the center. “At
least 85 percent of our kids who are tested again in 60 days show
some kind of improvement,” says Jones. She remembers in particular
one student who hadn’t been to school in three years. She
helped him improve his reading three grade levels in several months. “We
were able to help him grow,” she says.
Sara Garfield, director of the Transitional Learning Center, praises
Jones’s ability to foster this growth in her students. “Gail
Jones is an exceptional teacher and true mentor to the homeless
children she serves,” says Garfield. “She truly has
made a difference in the lives of children she has taught, children
who were fortunate to have her as their teacher and mentor—and
for many, she was the only positive female role model in their
lives.”
Jones’s stabilizing influence continues even after students
leave her classroom. She stays in touch with former students, sending
monthly cards to many of them and receiving many letters and visits
in return. She has gone to several high school graduations and
corresponds by e-mail with a former student now serving in Iraq.
She talks with pride of another former student who just accepted
a scholarship to a college in Fairbanks, Alaska.
Jones hopes all her students get a chance to experience the freedom
and independence of college that she found at CSU, Chico. “The
experience of college is something that I don’t want my students
to miss,” she says. “It was [being] on your own, independent,
making your own decisions, growing up—trying to find your
way in life.”
Jones is doing all she can to teach her students about the world
of possibilities open to them. In her classroom, education is not
only transitional, it’s transformative.
Anna Harris, Public Affairs and Publications
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