Darius arrived in my 1st grade classroom at around 9:00 on a Wednesday morning, amid the chaos of preparation for embarking on our fall field trip to the pumpkin patch. I was only in my second year of teaching; this was the first trip I had planned, and I was nervous.
I was in the back of the room, busy collecting the students' brown bag lunches, making sure they were clearly labeled with their names before they went into the crate, when the office secretary slipped Darius and his dad into the room and presented me with his pink admission slip.
"Darius and his sister just moved to the area," she explained.
I gave her a helpless glance. "But … we're getting ready to leave for the day." With a half-smile, she quickly retreated to the door.
A small, timid child swallowed by a puffy jacket and oversized backpack, Darius stood quietly behind his dad while I introduced myself and hastily presented a permission form for our trip to the farm, now scheduled to depart in less than half an hour. While I gestured to show Darius the cubby where he could place his backpack, I scrambled to find him a yellow T-shirt, scribbled a makeshift nametag on masking tape, and submitted a last-minute request to the cafeteria for a bag lunch.
"Is it a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Because Darius is allergic to peanuts, and he can't eat that," his dad broke in. "And please make sure he doesn't pet the animals at the farm. He's allergic to those, too, so make sure he stays away from them or he'll break out in hives."
I glanced over at Darius, still sheltered by his dad's shadow and hidden in his jacket, which seemed even bigger on him now that his backpack had been removed. The other students were chatting loudly, their excitement mounting. I sensed Darius's hesitation as he silently surveyed the classroom full of unfamiliar people.
"What a fun field trip this will be for him," I thought sarcastically as I made a note of his medical conditions.
"No problem," I reassured his dad. As I scanned the admission slip for transportation information on how he'd be getting home that afternoon, I noticed that his family had moved from Durham and recognized the name of his previous school.
"You went to Oakwood Elementary? I did some student teaching there when I was at Chapel Hill. Don't tell me you're Duke fans," I chided, trying to lighten the mood. I caught a hint of a smile from Darius while his dad joked back and assured me that the UNC Tarheels were their team.
"Most of our family is still in the Durham area, but we had to leave and follow work," he explained.
I nodded in understanding, shook hands, and offered a more cordial farewell. "Well, welcome to Charlotte. I'm sure we'll get along just fine." I escorted the still bashful Darius to his desk as his dad waved goodbye and walked out the door.
Now that Darius was somewhat settled, I refocused my attention on trip preparations and left him to make small talk with the new classmates sitting next to him. There were still the emergency cards, first aid kit, hand sanitizer, and driving directions to be gathered.
Our field trip that day ensued without any major incidents, and Darius seemed to warm up to me and to the other students as they shared the task of picking out the biggest pumpkin to take back to school. In the next couple of weeks, I communicated frequently with Darius's mother as we discussed his lagging reading skills and his low confidence. He would burst into tears over unlearned spelling words and conjure up a thousand questions and excuses to avoid writing a story.
With time, however, we witnessed his growth—both academically, as he began to read and write enthusiastically on his own, and socially, as he developed friendships with other children in the class who recognized how kind and thoughtful he was. He boasted of his perfect scores on reading tests, offered to help others with their work, and took pride in presenting the book he'd written to the rest of the class.
But when we returned from spring break in late March, I watched Darius slowly withdraw from the class. It began with a sudden trip to Raleigh—a "family emergency" that caused him to miss several days. He struggled to catch up on missed lessons and skills. Then the tardiness began, and for three days in a row he showed up an hour or two late to school, clothes disheveled and homework incomplete. He had trouble focusing on his work, connecting with his peers, and accepting the punishment of missing recess to finish his homework. Any incident, even one as seemingly insignificant as losing his place in line, resulted in uncontrollable sobbing.
When I was finally able to contact his mother, she told me that the family had been forced to move in with some friends who lived across town, and his tardiness was a result of fighting through miles of traffic each morning. I extended my patience with Darius's performance, but the attendance secretary eventually learned of the family's move and agreed to let them stay at our school only if Darius arrived on time. His arrival time became more consistent, but soon Darius again missed several days in a row, returning with a note explaining that this absence was also caused by family matters that he had been told not to discuss with anyone at school.
I tried to make Darius's time in our classroom as comfortable and secure as possible, and his smile when he entered in the morning seemed to indicate a feeling of relief at returning to a familiar environment. But one day in April, Darius simply didn't show up. The pink drop slip appeared in my mailbox with as little fanfare as when Darius had arrived in the classroom the previous October. Just like that, Darius was gone from my roster and from my life.
A Common Story
Darius's departure called to mind all the other students who had come and gone that year. There were Lucas, Roberto, Zuliana, Steven. … In fact, only one-third of my students at the end of the year had been on my original roster. As I reflected on my class from the previous year, I recalled students like Julia and Andrea, the sisters I had visited at home, bringing groceries and Christmas presents, who had suddenly informed me one Friday afternoon that they were moving to Texas and wouldn't be back. More of their classmates had disappeared over the summer break or during 2nd grade—Maria, Destiny, Jennifer, Josefina, Catalina, Roquelle. I suddenly realized that more than one-half of my original students had not remained at the same school for two consecutive years. If this attrition rate continued, only two or three of them would still be attending our school by 5th grade.
As I thought of Darius entering his third 1st grade classroom, I recalled how difficult the adjustment into my class had been for him, and I wondered how well he would transition into the next. Would it be easier for him, now that he was used to being thrown into a new setting? Or would it be harder to let down his guard and invest in new friendships, knowing that they weren't guaranteed to last? At what point would his repeated moves damage his learning so much that he would face retention? How long would it be before he stopped trying?
I also thought of myself and the frustrations and heartbreak I had faced each year as students I cared about vanished. At what point would their frequent mobility discourage me from investing in relationships with my students and trying hard to teach them?
We know that the burden of changing schools, teachers, and friends magnifies the problems that many impoverished students face. But we should acknowledge that high mobility rates negatively affect teachers as well. As they repeatedly lose contact with the students to whom they dedicate themselves, teachers who work with our most vulnerable students may begin to view their job as a high-risk emotional investment. Frequent mobility can create a cycle of withdrawal, damaging the morale of students and teachers as well.
Share Your Stories, Learn More
What has your school done to address the problem of student mobility that teacher Laura Hoeing describes in this article? How do you personally cope with the problem? Share your experience on Inservice, the ASCD blog, athttp://ascd.typepad.com/blog/2008/04/where-have-all.html. To learn about one school district's successful efforts to reduce the harmful effects of student mobility, read "When Mobility Disrupts Learning," by Jean Louise M. Smith, Hank Fien, and Stan C. Paine, in the April 2008 issue of Educational Leadership.
