She telephoned the boy s previous school to get his history and found that he had jumped on one child s outstretched leg, breaking it. In November, the boy transferred to another school. A move from family to foster care sent a Cleveland student to Hawthorne Elementary School in Lorain. This boy was so desperate to make friends, he stole money from a teacher s purse and passed it out to fellow students, Hawthorne Principal Loretta Jones says. What we see are kids who are depressed because they don t have a social network, Feinberg says.
Kids feel awkward and uncomfortable.
They try to prove themselves through strength and coolness. In addition to behavioral and academic problems, mobile students frustrate administrators because the children seldom arrive with records, grades and immunization forms. Clerk Ella Kirtley spends half her day enrolling new students, withdrawing them and searching for records from their old schools. Kirtley is retired but Bauer has convinced her to stay on because he doesn t think he can find another clerk who can keep up. What s scary to Kirtley is how difficult it is to get vital information on students and how quickly that information changes.