Some of the students at Mayfield High School found it hard to believe.
They were in a conference room, setting up their own bank accounts. And as long as they stayed in school, did all their homework and went to tutoring, they could soon begin receiving monthly $500 deposits, their school leaders had explained.
“Is this real?” a few of the students wondered, recalled Ray Banegas, the federal programs administrator for the Las Cruces, New Mexico, school system.
“Yes,” he replied, “this is something real.”
A real chance to get money that could help the students afford transportation, pay their families’ bills and mitigate the myriad ways homelessness has interfered with their educations. And a real chance, educators believe, for the teens to get their grades up and eventually walk across the graduation stage.
The Mayfield students are among about 330 New Mexico high-schoolers set to join a newly launched state pilot program offering monthly $500 payments to teens experiencing housing insecurity and other issues, conditioned on meeting certain goals. The students are in varying situations but may share others’ homes, live without their parents or have substandard housing.
The initiative aims to help remove barriers that keep the teens from attending school — most often, a lack of transportation, utilities, food, clothing or health care.
“I do put a lot of effort into school, with or without the money,” said Dai, a 16-year-old junior at Mayfield who lives with her grandmother. But the new payments offer further incentive — and relief. “It makes me feel really happy because I know I’m not going to be having struggles.”
For Dai, whom The Washington Post is identifying by her first name because she is a minor, the money will mean being able to buy the food she and her grandmother can’t always afford, along with clothing and toiletries. She’s looking forward to purchasing chicken and vegetables so she can get more nutrition for cross-country and track practice.
The payment program was pioneered by New Mexico Appleseed, a child poverty nonprofit that first tested the initiative in 2020. Only 51 percent of the state’s homeless students had graduated the year before, but in the test cohort, 13 of 14 seniors graduated — a 93 percent rate.
Now, leaders in New Mexico — which in 2023 had the highest child poverty rate in the nation and has about 10,000 homeless students — hope to test that success at Mayfield High and about a dozen other districts with a three-year pilot program. The initiative is the first of its kind, advocates say, and could become a national model for improving academic outcomes for homeless students.
“It’s a totally new approach, something that we haven’t done before,” said New Mexico education secretary Mariana Padilla. “It’s not just about improving attendance. … It is really about changing their future.”
The program is not a silver bullet for solving housing insecurity among students, who often face a variety of issues in their family lives. But its supporters say it is one model for examining their needs holistically.
Participating schools will offer the pilot program to eligible sophomores, juniors and seniors who have been identified as homeless under a federal definition, the state education department announced last week.
To get the money, students must maintain a 92 percent monthly attendance rate, complete all their schoolwork and meet weekly with a counselor. They do not have to account for how they spend the funds, but they will participate in financial advising, said Jennifer Ramo, executive director of New Mexico Appleseed.
If a student doesn’t meet the monthly academic requirements, they will have a chance to try again the next month, said Simone Vann, who is heading the program at the state education department.
The program is New Mexico’s latest move to bolster social support for children. This year, it became the first state to implement universal child care.
A few weeks into the program at Mayfield High, adults have already noticed a shift in students’ motivation, Banegas said. They text with their district liaison daily, eager to make sure they’re on track, and have started tutoring sessions that are part of the deal.
This week or next, Banegas expects to hand out the students’ new debit cards after the first $500 lands in their bank accounts. The students have talked about using the money to help their families make rent, buy new clothes for school and start an emergency fund.
“You can see the excitement,” said Banegas. “But also nervousness — a lot of them have never opened a bank account before.”
Dai found that process intimidating, but once it was done, she said, she immediately began thinking about what she needed to do: Make sure she isn’t tardy anymore, turn in all her homework on time, improve her math grade if it slips.
“I have high goals about graduating,” she said. “[Now] I don’t have to worry about, ‘Oh, I don’t have this’ or, ‘I have to keep wearing this again and again.’”
More than 1.3 million students classified as homeless nationwide experience difficulty getting to or staying in school, which can affect their lives far beyond graduation. Homeless students are more likely to switch schools and be chronically absent, both of which are associated with an increased risk of dropping out and lower academic achievement, according to the Department of Education.
Nationwide, homeless students finish high school at a rate of 69 percent, compared to 86 percent for all students, according to the latest federal data.
Graduating is key to preventing future homelessness: Not having a high school diploma is the greatest risk factor for becoming homeless as an adult, said Barbara Duffield, executive director of SchoolHouse Connection, a national nonprofit focused on homelessness and childhood.
The new payment program began when New Mexico Appleseed was looking for ways to spend donor money during the coronavirus pandemic. Homeless students had named money as an issue in focus groups, and Ramo had researched the success of cash payments in other countries as a tool to lift people out of poverty. She proposed trying it in New Mexico.
The group piloted the initiative in two summer school programs with students preparing to start high school and then in year-long programs in two districts. The outcomes showed success: In addition to the high graduation rate among the 14 participating seniors, students said the program motivated them to focus on school and tutoring helped them pass their classes. Families said the money helped them pay for clothes, school supplies, phone bills and utilities.
Many students developed a sense of ownership over their education and pride in helping their families financially, said Banegas, whose district previously participated in a summer pilot for the initiative. Knowing their electricity wouldn’t get shut off or they wouldn’t get evicted gave them stability that helped them focus at school, he said.
In some cases, teachers noticed that the younger siblings of students in the program were also attending school more frequently, said Karen Sanchez-Griego, who was superintendent in one of the pilot districts, Cuba Independent Schools, at the time.
“We never looked at anything we did as a handout,” Sanchez-Griego said. “We’re trying to show them us investing in them, showing them that they have a place in the world and that their lot in life is not just, ‘I’m destined to impoverishment.’”
“When you invest in people,” she added, “they respond.”
After those pilots, Ramo and her colleagues at New Mexico Appleseed presented the idea to state lawmakers. In March, the legislature approved $2.1 million in annual funding for three years.
The state will collect data on participants’ attendance rates, graduation rates and academic outcomes. Officials will evaluate the results quarterly. When the three years are up, state officials hope to expand the program statewide.
Dai predicted the money will help her worry less, allowing her to focus on her goal of graduating in the top 20 of her class. She’s planning to buy groceries and winter clothes after the first payment comes this month.
“But I wouldn’t spend it that day,” she said. “I would save it and spend it when I need it.”
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