Reading, Writing, Evicted: Driven to stay in school
This series was produced with the support of the University of Southern California Annenberg Center for Health Journalism and its Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism.
Other stories in the series include:
Reading, Writing, Evicted: How Austin, Texas, hopes to combat student turnover
Reading, Writing, Evicted: Portland's housing crisis is an education story
Reading, Writing, Evicted: Portland children don't pay rent but they are paying a price
Reading, Writing, Evicted: Whole classrooms suffer when high rents upend children
Reading, Writing, Evicted: A bus ride to belong
Reading, Writing, Evicted: A no-cause eviction haunts a mom and her three kids
Adelfa Sanchez was forced out of her apartment in Northeast Portland after a 100 percent rent increase.
Adelfa Sanchez spends roughly two hours each school day driving children to and from Portland’s Rigler Elementary.
Sanchez isn’t a bus driver.
She’s a mom who is dedicated keeping her children and two of her sons’ classmates in their old neighborhood school after the landlord at their old apartment complex doubled — doubled — the rent last year.
That rent hike forced more than a dozen children out of Rigler. The move separated them not just from their Northeast Portland school, but shut them out of a Spanish immersion education.
It could have been worse. In total, 26 children’s educations were threatened by the rent hike at that one complex. But some were able to remain in the well-regarded Spanish immersion program that connects them to their native language. Three of those children managed to hang on because of one person: Sanchez.
Her family and two others found city-subsidized apartments where they could afford to live. But they now live miles outside the Rigler attendance zone and no school bus will come and get them.
So every day, Sanchez starts her tiny silver Nissan with the booster seat in back and drives her son and two classmates to Rigler. Then she drives back home and picks up her two middle-school-age children and drives them to Beaumont. Then, in the afternoon, she gets back in the car again.
Adelfa Sanchez commutes to and from school with her three children, who attend two different Portland schools.
Her family and two others found city-subsidized apartments where they could afford to live. But they now live miles outside the Rigler attendance zone and no school bus will come and get them.
So every day, Sanchez starts her tiny silver Nissan with the booster seat in back and drives her son and two classmates to Rigler. Then she drives back home and picks up her two middle-school-age children and drives them to Beaumont. Then, in the afternoon, she gets back in the car again.
She does this because she knows the value of bilingual education and a stable school experience -- and the pain of being in a school where parents or students feel unwelcome.
When Sanchez’s daughter was younger, she attended a school without an immersion program or the welcoming atmosphere she and her children found at Rigler.
“The teacher didn’t even say hello to me or anything,” she said. “They wouldn’t even look at me or they looked at me with disgust.”
orge Rivera's first grade class, part of the Spanish immersion program at Rigler Elementary School.
“I don’t know about other mothers, but me as a mom, I always try to be involved with my kids’ teachers,” she said. And Rigler, she says, makes that easy, since her son’s bilingual teachers are eager to explain to her how her son is doing and what he’s learning.
“I don’t feel confident in other schools. I feel like sometimes it’s because of the English. I can defend myself more now, but three years ago or so I didn’t know hardly anything and I felt ignored in that school.”
Interim Rigler Principal Jennifer Fontana said children who have to leave Rigler are unlikely to get into a similar language program.
"This is much more complex than just moving to a new apartment,” she said. "Parents are really highly impacted when linguistically there is barrier to communicate with the school."
Sanchez says it’s heartbreaking to see Latino children who have lost their ability to read and speak Spanish or don’t know it well. She doesn’t want that for her children.
“If one day my kids changed schools, I’d have to resign myself to that. But I’ve always said that right now, while they are still young, I want them to be in that school because it’s of two languages,” she said. “I’m proud of all three of them, because they speak Spanish well and speak English, too.”
[This story was originally published by The Oregonian.]
[Photos by Beth Nakamura / The Oregonian.]