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Lake schools turn to laundry to improve poor students' well-being, grades

Lake schools turn to laundry to improve poor students' well-being, grades

by DeVore Design, April 24, 2017

Students at two Lake County elementary schools with high numbers of students living in poverty or considered homeless don’t always come to school in clean clothes.

“When we got kids who come in who do not have the very basics … kids can be cruel,” Eustis Heights Elementary Principal Chad Frazier said.

To counteract that and keep the focus on school, Eustis Heights and Triangle Elementary School in Mount Dora have used a grant and fundraising efforts to install two pairs of washers and dryers for students to clean their clothes.

The schools expect the clothes-washing initiative will translate into better attendance and grades based on the experience of the Fairfield, Calif., district, which reported an increase in attendance and better student participation after installing laundry machines in numerous schools.

“It’s not only just about learning,” said Abby Hartmann, a psychologist at both elementary schools. “It’s also the home environment; it’s about where they’re coming from … We like to look at the child with the big picture.”

More than 130 students at the two Lake schools are considered homeless, meaning they live in either a motel, a car or have moved in with relatives. Also, 90 percent of Eustis Heights Elementary and 85 percent of Triangle Elementary students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch

But school board member Bill Mathias questioned whether doing students’ laundry is the district’s job.

“I believe in giving a hand up,” he said. “I do not believe in giving a hand out, and I don’t know that it’s the school district’s responsibility to wash somebody’s clothes. There are agencies across this county that can assist in getting training or elevating them from their circumstances.”

The two schools hope to pivot to an after-school session during which parents come in to use the machines “while we work academically with the child and giving teachers access to the parent,” Thornton said.

Costs for the machines and plumbing ran about $10,000 and were raised mostly by a private foundation grant, a GoFundMe campaign and money from the Amazing Race charity in Eustis this month, said Sherry Thornton, a social worker at Eustis Heights Elementary.

“Everything was paid for from our community,” she said.

After one mother’s laundry machine broke, she washed her children’s clothes by hand in the bathtub and hung them “on a line during the humid season, where they would never completely dry, and then they would smell really sour,” Thornton said. Those students and others told Thornton that they avoided school because of their dirty clothes.

Now, kids discreetly drop off their clothes on Friday morning, a volunteer washes and folds them, and the kids pick it up when the school day is over.

“So far, it’s going great,” Frazier said.

Laundry machines were also previously installed at Beverly Shores Elementary in Leesburg, which also has a high percentage of students on free or reduced-price lunch, for the same purpose.

Many of these low-income kids have nontraditional homes. Every week, school employees visit families of children who live in motels. One family lives on a campground, Thornton said.

jruiter@orlandosentinel.com or 352-742-5927