Cape school district seeks information from organizations providing resources during summer

Cape Girardeau Public Schools is seeking information from community organizations — such as churches, local businesses and not-for-profits — providing assistance and resources during the summer to help students and families in need.

The district is looking to gather as much information as possible on assistance for food, child care, housing needs and health needs to pass along to parents before the current school year ends Wednesday, May 22. The district also plans to send the information to other schools in the area to ensure families of students from multiple communities have access to the resources.

Mandy Keys, assistant superintendent of Special Services with Cape Girardeau Public Schools, said the need for summer services came up at a recent meeting of the local Show Me Strong Kids chapter. Show Me Strong Kids is a program through the University of Missouri that provides support for "making evidence-informed decisions to maximize child health and well-being across community settings."

"Somebody brings a story of a family situation to our meetings, and they pitch what is happening and the struggles that the family is having," Keys said. "Then, we, as a hub team, give them resources, ideas, ways to address that and we connect them with people. Then, we will have four sessions, and as we come to a close we will, hopefully, have developed a huge list of resources that we can share with our community.

"Our first session was on homelessness. We have several targeted topics that we’re going to discuss later down the line ... but this one, in particular, was on homelessness. We were talking about the number of families considered homeless in Cape Girardeau Public Schools, and as part of that discussion, the need for the school district to know what events community organizations will be having in the summer that can serve our families who are dealing with housing crises came up. For example, churches may provide a meal every certain day during the summer, or they may do a food pantry or a drive-thru where you can pick up food boxes, or they may have a health clinic going on at a church or a local community organization."

According to Keys, more than 170 students experienced homelessness at some point during the 2022-23 school year. The McKinney-Vento Homeless Act — a federal law that provides money for homeless shelter programs — defines youth homelessness as "children and unaccompanied youth who lack a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence."

"If you’re displaced and you’re having to stay with another family short-term while you’re looking for another place, that’s considered homeless," Keys said. "Even though you’re staying in somebody’s house, you’re doing it short term because you’ve lost housing. If somebody loses their job and they have to stay with somebody for a short time, they’re considered homeless. If they live in an RV park or a hotel, that’s considered homeless."

Keys emphasized the importance of having the information before summer break begins for students because parents can sometimes be difficult to communicate with during the break.

"They will send us that stuff in the summer when they do it. The problem is, when schools send things out in the summer, honestly, parents don’t pay as much attention to it because their kids aren’t in school," Keys said. "... If they know they’re going to be doing that, if they could get us that information sooner than later we can push it all out before the end of the school year to all of our families so that they will have better access to the resources, and so all the community organizations that put these things on will get people attending."

District social worker Carolyn Thomas gave an example of a food pantry setting up outside one of the district’s buildings, but many families weren’t able to take advantage of the assistance because the school district hadn’t been notified.

"We could probably call a few parents, but had we known, we could have sent it through the summer packets that we send out when the kids (go on summer break)," Thomas said. "We will send out some information to the parents about places and things to do for the summer."

The school district offers assistance during the school year through the Care To Learn program, a Springfield-based organization whose mission is to "provide immediate funding to meet emergent needs in the areas of health, hunger and hygiene so every student can be successful in school." Thomas said the district can assist students with laundry and clothing needs, groceries and medical and dental checkups, among other things, through the program.

"One of the biggest goals is to do whatever it takes to make these kids be productive in school," Thomas said. "Hunger, health and hygiene. To find homes, to (help with) electricity or to help pay a bill. ... Whatever we need to do to get these kids here and being productive, feeling safe and feeling like they’re wanted and they matter, that’s what we do as a district."

To submit information to Cape Girardeau Public Schools, contact Keys by calling (573) 335-1867 or emailing keysm@cape tigers.com. Thomas may be reached at (573) 334-2923 or thomasc@capetigers.com, and Special Services administrative assistant Rachel Berry is available at berryr@capetigers.com.