Man helps homeless kids stay in school

Helping homeless students stay in school is a challenge, at best. Preoccupied with their next meal and next night’s lodging, these youngsters often have trouble coping with additional academic and social pressures levied during a typical school day.

Tim Rogers helps homeless kids stay in school. Coordinator of the Homeless Education Project with Bangor’s Community Health and Counseling Services, Rogers mixes compassion with determination to keep school doors open for students without family support who must fend for themselves at very young ages.

Since February, Rogers has helped 25 local youngsters, he said. He is working for a new boss — he was employed by the Bangor School Department last year — but Rogers expressed hope this week that he can continue to link Bangor’s most vulnerable population with the services they need to stay in school and to improve their lives.

Most days, Rogers can be found at Bangor High School in the morning, checking on the progress of some of his clients and tutoring or attending Pupil Evaluation Team (PET) meetings with teachers regarding the progress, or lack of it, of special-needs students. In the afternoon, he meets with clients at Shaw House, Bangor’s homeless shelter for children and adolescents, to help determine the services they need to stay in school. Often he transports kids to school in the morning and helps them with their homework at night.

Rogers “has a critically important job” in terms of getting children off the street for good, said Bill England, Shaw House executive director.

England mentioned the case of one high school youth who had stayed at Shaw House for several weeks and had no other place to go. Rogers helped get him into a group home, England said.

The Shaw House board of directors has pledged money for this year and next year to help fund Rogers’ job, England said.

Rogers collaborates with other agencies including the Bangor School Department, the Department of Human Servies, Project Atrium and Community Health and Counseling Services.

Rogers has an important job, according to local advocates for homeless, troubled youths, yet his position fell to the budget ax within the Bangor School Department last year.

Federal funds for his job with the school department came from the Stewart B. McKinney Act. These funds were cut, despite the fact that he served 115 children in the 1993-94 academic year. Fifty-five of the children were Bangor residents.

A Bangor Daily News article in July 1994, mentioned the demise of Rogers’ job with the Bangor School Department. The story caught the attention of officials at Community Health and Counseling Services and they assumed overall responsibility for the position starting in February.

Rogers’ job is funded for six months through grants from various agencies. Rogers and his colleagues still are trying to secure funding beyond the six-month trial period. He most likely will get the money to do the job for the next year, although, Rogers said, he would be interested in hearing from agencies who might want to contribute to the homeless education cause.

“Education is one of the keys to success in life,” Rogers said. “If these kids lose out, society pays.”