Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/2868
Barajas, suffer from depression, stress and fear that they, too, may lose their home. She has referred some to counseling. One student was too traumatized to do homework after he lost his home in a fore- closure and his father was forced to look for work outside of town, leaving his mother alone during most of the week with four children. “I tell them how important it is for them to communicate with me if they are feeling upset and sad, because their feelings are important,” says Barajas. “That way I can be sensitive to that and help them. Most of all I want to make learning fun for them and to make the classroom a world where they can feel good about themselves and forget about things that are bothering them.” “It’s really scary,” says Paula Scheidecker, a librarian at Fairview Elementary. “School staff is very concerned. It’s shaken us up. We have empty houses and we don’t have children. Where are they? Where are they going? That’s what we ask ourselves in the staff room and the hallways.” And, says Scheidecker, there is the constant fear that declining enrollment and the current status of the state budget will mean cutbacks in teaching positions along with money for resources and basic supplies. A city of foreclosures The housing bust has also severely im- pacted the nearby Central Valley commu- nity of Merced, which has one of the high- est foreclosure rates in the country as a re- sult of the creation of dozens of brand- new neighborhoods. In the past three years the median sales price of homes has fallen by 50 percent and there are thou- sands of foreclosures on the market. Josh Collins, a history teacher at Gold- en Valley High School in Merced, says there are small signs of financial struggles, such as students not being able to afford november 2008 | www.cta.org 9 yearbooks or activity for prepaid dances throughout the year. And there are larger signs — for example, there may not be enough money to build the new high school that was supposed to be funded by once-surging property taxes that have evaporated. “There is still a need for a new high school,” says Collins, a member of the Mer- ced Unified High School District Teachers Association. “If one doesn’t get built, we will have to bus students from Merced to Atwater.” Teachers, unfortunately, have been caught up in the mortgage crisis them- selves, becoming part of the new poor. Col- Estimated number of children affected this year by parents losing their homes: > New York 106,500 > Florida 130,500 > Texas 144,400 > California 311,900 From a study released by First Focus in May 2008. fixed rate, unlike others whose adjustable mortgage rates skyrocketed, forcing them to move away. “I’ve seen the gamut, “I’ve seen the gamut, from teachers in foreclosure, teachers on the brink of foreclosure, to teachers who have totally lost their homes.” Dora Crane, Merced City Teachers Association lins, for example, bought his house when prices were high, and it is now worth less than what he owes. He calls himself “cash poor.” But he was lucky enough to get a from teachers in foreclo- sure, teachers on the brink of foreclosure, to teachers who have totally lost their homes,” says Dora Crane, immediate past president of the Merced City Teach- ers Association. Crane says that new teachers in Merced have been affected more than veteran teachers, because they purchased homes at peak prices within the past few years, often