Program Spotlight: Positive Tomorrows providing a wealth of opportunity for families experiencing homelessness

“My favorite thing about Positive Tomorrows is being able to talk to anybody and they won’t judge you. Everybody is just like you. They all went through the same or similar situations.” - Josiah, 4th Grade

Located in Oklahoma City, Positive Tomorrows is a dual elementary school and social service agency catered specifically for families experiencing homelessness. Positive Tomorrows aims to break down barriers to academic success by providing essentials to learning, including access to healthy meals, clean clothing, safe transportation, and health services. The school currently serves 104 students who represent many different cultures and housing statuses. 

Students experiencing housing insecurity face additional obstacles that can affect academic success, including food insecurity, lack of medical care, limited transportation, and even trauma and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). For students experiencing these barriers, maintaining grades and attending class becomes difficult. By providing essential support to families and creating accessible learning programs equipped with trained and cognizant staff, Positive Tomorrows can offer children and young people a robust and inclusive education regardless of housing status or cost.

Positive Tomorrows assesses student progress through the Measures of Academic Progress Assessment Program (MAPs), and has seen steady progress in literacy and STEM subjects amongst all grades due to enriching and supplemental learning programs offered. Throughout testing groups, Positive Tomorrows was able to see that steady engagement and attendance in the program resulted in higher achievement in line with national score averages, especially in math.

Positive Tomorrows succeeds in encouraging student attendance with an average daily attendance of 94% and an average median length of stay of 124 days out of 126 school days. 

With the onset of the pandemic, Positive Tomorrows continued to sustain consistent student attendance and engagement by providing key essentials straight to families: issuing Chromebooks and Hotspots for reliable access to schoolwork, and delivering more than 1,500 boxes of food, cleaning supplies, and hygiene products. Class dynamics changed as well, but the community network strengthened. Teachers taught in public spaces available to families, and Facebook groups were created to keep in touch with other students and encourage accountability. Although the transition to virtual learning was difficult for families experiencing homelessness, the program armed families with the additional tools needed to provide a safe and reliable space for learning.

The program also places priority on social and emotional learning, as well as exposure to a number of arts, language, and sports programs with more than half of students enrolled in a form of afterschool or break camp program. Students are able to bridge their in-school learning and interact with their immediate community with fun activities like yoga, art, ice-skating, French, and basketball. Since 2020, Positive Tomorrows has moved to a new facility in order to serve more families, provide enough space for social distancing, and re-engage and re-connect students to in-person learning.

With the following services provided, Positive Tomorrows is eliminating the barriers that prevent families from keeping their child enrolled or enrolling their child in afterschool and extracurricular activities: 

• 19,173 instances of transportation provided

• 21,093 meals served

• 12,566 basic necessities distributed

Students are also given access to health check-ups, dental screenings, hearing screenings, and counseling in order to reduce missed school time and burdensome costs for families.

Through their program, Positive Tomorrows offsets the costs for education and in turn helps families maintain housing stability and employment status. On an average 3-month attendance, the program saw that families:

• 96 percent maintained or improved employment status (81 percent improved)

• 70 percent maintained or improved stable housing (63 percent improved)

• 84 percent maintained or increased their income (81 percent increased)

With their core pillars including integrity, creativity, and hope, Positive Tomorrows aims to combat poverty with education and critical resources to help families thrive and maintain access to the tools that help create future leaders.

To learn more about Positive Tomorrows, visit their website and read their most recent annual report