The teachers are getting an overall view of their students' lives. Not just what these kids experience during the day inside school.
Teachers at Brainerd High School did not spend the first day of Hamilton County in-service training walking the school's hallways or preparing their classrooms. Instead, the teachers spent Thursday learning what life is like for their students outside of school.
More than 90 percent of the students at Brainerd High School qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, making it one of the most economically disadvantaged high schools in Hamilton County. The school is on the state's priority list, meaning that its test scores continue to be in the bottom 5 percent of school test scores across the state, and it is the only local high school in the Hamilton County iZone, a special designation that provides extra help.
First days of school
Student back-to-school dates:* Dade County schools: Tuesday, Aug. 11* Walker County schools: Wednesday, Aug. 12* Hamilton County schools: Thursday, Aug. 13
The school's administrators decided this year to have the teachers participate in a poverty simulation and tour some of the low-income neighborhoods that their students call home.
Brainerd High School Assistant Principal Charles Mitchell said the idea is to prepare teachers to build strong relationships with their students.
"The teachers are getting an overall view of their students' lives," Mitchell said. "Not just what these kids experience during the day inside school."
During the poverty simulation, which took place in the United Way of Greater Chattanooga's conference room, teachers were assigned "families" and specific identities within those families. Together, the family group tried to get through a simulated month with a specific set of resources and a long list of expenses and obstacles that many living in concentrated poverty face.
Families used the paper money they were given or earned to buy transportation vouchers, which allowed them to travel to locations around the room to work, pay rent, buy groceries and medicine, pawn items from their houses or try to get loans to pay utilities.
Throughout the simulation the groups were constantly frantic, talking about how hard it is to juggle all the responsibilities and worry about having housing and food for their families next week.
"You need to think strategically," one of the simulation administrators shouted at the groups. "Your goal is to survive and thrive, if at all possible."
James Kircher, a returning chemistry teacher at Brainerd, played the role of Ned, a 57-year-old partially paralyzed man. His character could rarely leave the home he shared with his son's family of three. He received a disability check, and his son worked for minimum wage, but by the third week, the family's money was quickly disappearing and they weren't sure how they were going to buy groceries.
Kircher said the simulation was helpful for teachers to get a glimpse into their students' lives.
"With our first impression, we don't always know what is going on with our students," Kircher said. "I had a top-performing student that was homeless for six weeks and I didn't know. I had no idea he was taking care of his siblings and didn't have a place to live."
After the simulation, the teachers rode a school bus to the Woodlawns, a low-income neighborhood in east Chattanooga, and they visited several of the local recreation centers in the area.
Teachers got off the bus and talked with the kids in the neighborhoods - many are or will be students at Brainerd. They also spent time with the employees at the centers, as these are some of the people directly interacting with students after school hours and throughout the summer.
Mitchell said this was a very powerful time for the teachers because they were able to see the streets where their students live. It also was an encouragement to the students who were able to see the effort their teachers are making to understand their lives.
Melodee Boykins has been an attendance clerk at Brainerd for 11 years and said the activity was a reality check for many of the teachers.
"It helps teachers know and understand their students," Boykins said. "If you don't know you can't understand."
Contact staff writer Kendi Anderson at kendi.anderson@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6592.