Principal Marie Chauvet-Monchik at PS 138 in Crown Heights

NEW YORK, NY November 17, 2006 —Officially there are 1.5 million poor New Yorkers. Thousands of them are children. Improving their attendance at school so they can read and write at grade level is one way the city thinks it may eventually be able to lift these kids out of poverty. To do that the Mayor is considering paying parents for sending their children to school. In our special series on poverty WNYC’s Beth Fertig visited a school in Crown Heights, where 80 to 90 percent of the students are poor.

REPORTER: When the morning bell rings at PS 138, Principal Marie Chauvet-Monchik may be guiding students to class or checking in on her teachers.

CHAUVET-MONCHIK: Good morning!

REPORTER: On this morning, she stops by a class of first graders that recently got a new student.

CHAUVET-MONCHIK: Happy Birthday. How’s mommy?

GIRL: Fine.

CHAUVET-MONCHIK:You going to have a party?

REPORTER: The other kids don’t know this, but the new child is staying at a homeless shelter. She’s just turned six and her teacher has made her a golden crown of cardboard and paint, a birthday tradition here at PS 138.

TEACHER: Alright, let’s take the words off our word wall.

REPORTER: The little girl sits among her classmates on a rug. She’s dressed in a white shirt and burgundy pants - the school uniform – so she blends in easily with everyone else. But not everyone is here. Teacher Claudette McShine says only twelve of her students have shown up today.

McSHINE: There are 17 of them. We have a few of them who are out today.

REPORTER: As she leaves the class, Principal Chauvet-Monchik is clearly frustrated.

CHAUVET-MONCHIK: Unbelievable that’s what they do on Fridays.

REPORTER: It’s a Friday, one of the worst days of the week for attendance.

CHAUVET-MONCHIK: The lowest time we have on register is Fridays or Mondays or rainy days. I think the parents think the weekend starts on Friday.

Attendance at PS 138 has been just under 90 percent for the past few years. That’s slightly lower than average for a city elementary school. Chauvet-Montchik was born in Haiti and began working here as a science teacher 25 years ago. She says the poor, mostly black community is still a lot like it was when she started.

CHAUVET-MONCHIK: It changed but you wouldn’t see the change because those who change leave.

REPORTER: More than a third of all families in the school’s zip code live in poverty, according to the 2000 Census.

CHAUVET-MONCHIK: Some of the parents are working, some of them are doing well and some of them are struggling. And others are not working at all. Some children are being raised by grandmothers, single parents, foster care.

REPORTER: Not surprisingly, Chauvet-Monchik has seen plenty of heartbreak. There was the child who died of an illness, but her family was too poor to pay for a funeral. The school’s teachers chipped in for the service. There was a mother who wore the school T shirt every day because that’s all she had. And last year, the school had 36 students who were staying at homeless shelters. But Chauvet-Monchik says these sad, family secrets are usually well concealed. At least on the surface.

CHAUVET-MONCHIK: It’s so personal. Parents will never come out and tell you what’s going on, never. But you can read between the lines and you know something is affecting the child. Like if a child comes to school and never could have a notebook, no pencil, no nothing so we have the supplies and we’ll give them the supplies so if I provide all the basic needs then the child will be able to function like any other child.

REPORTER: Chauvet-Monchik keeps a closet full of supplies in her office for needy students. She figures she spends about a thousand dollars a year of her own money.

CHAUVET-MONCHIK: I have the pencils and markers and these.

REPORTER: The school also buys uniforms for kids who can’t afford their own. But Chauvet-Monchik knows these items can’t make up for parents who don’t read to their kids at home; or families who don’t take daily attendance seriously. Test scores at PS 138 are decent. Fifty-four percent of fourth graders were reading at grade level last year. But the percentages were lower in the other grades. Chauvet-Monchik believes these scores could be higher if her students had more support from home. That’s why she applauds Mayor Bloomberg’s proposal to give low income parents extra money for good attendance - though she does have one suggestion.

CHAUVET-MONCHIK: See I understand the mayor’s initiative he wants the children in school. But if they get paid they should volunteer in the school. Let them help with the education of their children. Let them be part of it. Do you know how hard it is for me to get parents to come and volunteer?

REPORTER: In the school cafeteria, about half of the school’s 11-hundred students come for free breakfast before the start of classes. Parents Ann Marie Thompson and James Willis both support the mayor’s proposal.

THOMPSON: Because sometimes you don’t have the money to take the bus to take your daughter, your kids to school. So I think that’s a good idea.

WILLIS: I think it would be a good idea, I think it would encourage learning and motivate the parents to do more. But I don’t know, looking at these schools here. I think they should put everything into the schools.

REPORTER: Chauvet-Monchik isn’t about to disagree with anyone calling for more resources. Her building is 105 years old and she’d love to put more technology in the classrooms. But:

CHAUVET-MONCHIK: If the children are not in school they’re not learning. It doesn’t matter how much, how talented these teachers are or how knowledgeable the teachers are it’s not going to work.

REPORTER: That’s what the city’s poverty initiative is all about: getting kids to school so they can have more opportunities than their families. For WNYC I’m Beth Fertig.

More from WNYC's poverty series