Mansfield City Schools Superintendent Dan Freund talks with board of education member Lowell Smith and Phil DeVol before teachers and administrators arrived for DeVol’s workshop in the Senior High auditorium.
Poverty is a reality for the families of many students in Mansfield City Schools, but a nationally known consultant and author said Wednesday there are ways to involve more of those families in their children’s education.
Phil DeVol of Marengo, Ohio, spoke to district teachers and administrators during an afternoon workshop in the Senior High auditorium. He was selected to facilitate the second annual Beginning Anew Conference, a two-day community discussion hosted by Mansfield City Schools, Ohio State University-Mansfield and North Central State College. This year’s theme is “Creating a climate for change.”
DeVol, author of “Getting Ahead in a Just Gettin’ By World,” offered a definition of poverty.
“Poverty,” he said, “is the extent to which an individual, organization or community does without resources.”
Education drives economic development, DeVol said, so a key to combating poverty is to get more families to recognize that education offers the opportunity for improvement and advancement.
“As I traveled in my work I saw that when we discuss poverty we never include people who areinpoverty,” DeVol said. “We talkaboutthem,tothem,forthem but neverwiththem. My hope here in Mansfield is to develop a common language in the way we talk about poverty.”
Renee Thompson, Family Engagement and Outreach Coordinator at OSU-Mansfield, said earlier that census data show that 20.4 percent of Mansfield’s population lives below the poverty line versus the state average of 14.8 percent. Eighty-four percent of Mansfield City Schools students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.
DeVol said families in poverty are much more effective than those in the middle class in building relationships among family and friends because they often are dependent on those relationships to solve problems.
“If you’re driving along the interstate and your car breaks down, you call AAA,” DeVol told the assembled educators, “but the guy in poverty has no choice but to call Uncle Ray.
“You get dropped off at work, your car gets fixed and at the end of the day you’re happy. But the guy in poverty now has no way to get where he was going and he must hope that someone among his family or friends will know how to fix his car.
“The driving force among those of us in the middle class is achievement. We’re living in isolation from one another. We don’t know each other. Those in poverty build relationships because they must count on each other to help solve problems.”
DeVol said those in poverty can’t look to future improvement because each day they must find concrete solutions to issues of food, child care, illness and transportation.
“They solve daily problems all the time but that doesn’t get them out of poverty,” he said.
While acknowledging that the actions of individuals often contribute to their poverty, DeVol blamed payday lenders for creating much bigger problems for many.
“When your paycheck won’t cover your needs, that’s aconcrete problem. When a payday lender gives you money, that’s aconcrete solution,” he said. “But the payday lender is banking on you not reading the fine print, so that one day you’re looking at 1,000 percent interest.
“Poverty is a very stressful place,” DeVol said, noting that the result can be illness and absence from work or school.
“There is a way for schools to engage families in poverty. We can develop a common language in the way we talk about poverty. We can change the climate.”
Superintendent Dan Freund, who said he has known and worked with DeVol for years, described poverty as “the elephant in the room.”
“We are serious about being a district that is excellent with distinction,” Freund said. “We know we have a lot of students who face non-academic barriers to their education. That’s why we are here talking about the impact of poverty on a community.”
The Beginning Anew conference was scheduled to continue Thursday with community discussions at the Richland County Foundation, Gorman-Rupp Technology Cener and the Maddox Memorial Temple Church of God In Christ.