On Saturday morning, April 26, I attended a conference sponsored by the Rand Corporation on the release of The City of Santa Monica 2014 Youth Wellbeing Report Card. The purpose of the report card is to track how the school aged children are doing in this beautiful city by the sea. Some of the good news is that more than 87 percent of Santa Monica kindergarteners are proficient in literacy, up from 76 percent in 2012, according to the report. But, as would be expected, literacy is worse among low-income and minority kindergarteners, according to the study, and that gap widens by third grade as reading scores drop across the board. In third grade, only 67.7 percent of Santa Monica students are proficient in the language arts.
The report card was developed to evaluate school achievement, physical health, social skill, and mental health. The first report card was released last year. More than 92 percent of Asian and white Santa Monica kindergarteners are proficient at reading compared to 77 percent of Latino kindergarteners and 70 percent of black kindergarteners. By third grade nearly 80 percent of white and 87 percent of Asian students are proficient in language arts but proficiency drops to 53 percent for black third graders and 43 percent for Latino third graders.
Some of the data in the report card that I found disconcerting included these two findings: A quarter of middle-school children report feeling unsafe at school, and four in 10 seventh and ninth graders say they’ve been harassed at school. As many as a third of high school juniors report binge drinking in the past month, and 17 percent of high school students report having suicidal thoughts. The rate of child abuse and teen pregnancy is up slightly in the city by the sea, as is the number of family households on food stamps. Slightly more students than in 2012 say they’ve felt hopelessness or extreme sadness recently (26.3 percent). About a quarter of incoming Santa Monica kindergarteners are not physically on track. Boys and children from the Pico neighborhood are more likely to be physically vulnerable, the report said.
In the afternoon, I participated at a beautiful small gathering at the Thelma Terry Building located in Virginia Avenue Park, in Santa Monica. The gathering was sponsored by the Santa Monica Pico Youth Center as part of the awareness raising events that I’m participating in as I ride across the country to create dialogue and discussion around the need for social emotional trauma-informed services for our youth, families, and communities. I’m endeavoring to put a face and story to the statistics that we now constantly receive and act on. Don’t get me wrong -- I’m very supportive of data. It's just that sometimes we forget that human beings are attached to the percentages, bar graphs, and numbers. We need to make the connections, and access the empathy and compassion that is wired into us from birth.
A powerful story shared that afternoon comes from an incredible and resilient young woman from the Pico neighborhood, currently attending USC’s School of Social Work, pursuing her Masters degree.
Michelle was born and grew up in the Pico Neighborhood in Santa Monica, the neighborhood in Santa Monica that the Wellbeing report identified as having children who are more prone to be physically vulnerable.
“My father worked in a neighborhood factory until the factory got shut down and he lost his job. He used to drink; all the men in the family drank. But when he lost his job he became an alcoholic,” Michelle recounted. "They found him right here in the park one morning. Nobody knows what happened, he was laying next to the sprinklers and had a cut on his head. The park was like my second home. All I had to do was jump the fence and I was in the park. My Dad knew all the homeless men that lived in the park then. He would walk by and they'd say, 'Who’s that little girl with you?' 'That’s my daughter,' he’d respond. 'That’s not your daughter,', they’d say. 'Tell him you’re my daughter mi hija,' he’d tell me. When they found him he’d been laying there all night and they took him to the hospital where I visited him everyday for a month until he passed away. He died the summer before I began eight grade. I remember going to the first day of school and having to do a writing assignment titled 'What I did during my summer vacation.'”
“I was raised by a single mother from the age of eleven on,” she said. "My siblings, who where older than me, were all in gangs. Those are the people I knew and grew up with. Many of them were and are still my friends. Throughout middle school, I was getting kicked out and suspended for fighting. One person who never gave up on me was the assistant principal at John Adams, Marie Everett. My family never cared what grades I would bring home but Mrs. Everett did. Every time I’d fight, she would tell me that I could do better. She said, 'Michelle, you're going to be somebody someday!' She believed in me, got me placed in honors English in high school." (I recently wrote another essay about a young man who grew up in similar circumstances Angel Villasenor, whose life was also touched by Mrs. Everett. I'm sure that this caring, empathetic, and loving woman, whom I've never met, has positively influenced the lives of many young people).
"I’ve seen a lot of violence through out my life," Michelle continued. "My sister was shot in the chest when she was thirteen. The bullet went through and out her shoulder. In 2005 when I was at Santa Monica High School, I went to a dance party with two of my friends, Jonathan and Hector, at the Moose Lodge on Ocean Park Avenue in Santa Monica. Everybody was dressed up. We didn’t know anything was going to happen. Bullets started flying everywhere. I thought I was going to die that day. When I got up off the floor I reached over to help my friend, he was shot in the head and died while I held him. Both Jonathan and Hector died that day.
"Through out high school, I went to the Pico Youth Center after school. I felt like the people knew my story there. One of the caseworkers at PYC (Pico Youth Center) helped me fill out my college applications. I never thought of going to college, but people, especially Mrs. Everett, told me that I should. I would have never been able to get through all the paper work without her help.
"I’m almost finished my first year of my Masters in social work. When I’m done, I want to help other people who are going through what I did. It’s going to be a tough year next year. I got to do my field placement, take care of my mom and work to help support the family. But I’ve come this far and know I’ll make it!"
There are so many young people experiencing what Michelle has, and, more often than not, we are unaware of their struggles. Fortunately for us and for our communities, there are also many loving, caring, amazing people and organizations that are making a positive difference in our children’s lives. The word “resiliency” comes up a lot when you engage in trauma-informed conversations. To me, resilience is more than a concept, it’s a doing, a way of being! It comes about through having a safe, stable nurturing relationship with a caregiver – it is forged through a connection. A healthy connection can help ensure that kids like Michelle can overcome the violence and toxic stress they are exposed to in their neighborhoods.
One such organization that brings about connection through providing caregivers/parents like Michelle with healthy parenting tools is Echo Parenting and Education. As I ride to bring awareness I’m also trying to help raise money for them. Please help by going to --- http://www.crowdrise.com/RiderforChange/fundraiser/jamesencinas
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