By Marshall Hammond
“We’re like an oasis,” says Cheryl Bickle, principal of Community Transitional School. “I find that we’re a much calmer school than most public schools, like the ones my grandkids are in. These kids don’t need any more chaos or drama in their lives. They need calmness so they can just settle down. Their lives are so unpredictable.”
Located in a single story building near the corner of NE Killingsworth and NE Cully, Community Transitional School (CTS) looks like any other small school. Student art and motivational slogans tacked to cork boards cover the walls of the main hallway. Plastic cups full of colored pencils pack the shelves of classrooms. A guinea pig sits in an aquarium in a corner.
But CTS is unique. Almost all of the 80 students currently enrolled at the K-8, tuition-free school are experiencing some level of housing instability. They may be living in shelters, cheap motels, transitional housing, on a friend’s floor or camping with their families in cars or on the street. The school’s mission is “to provide at-risk children with a stable educational environment that promotes their academic and personal growth.”
According to data from 2023, Portland has the highest percentages of homeless families and unaccompanied youths in the country. Homelessness and housing instability create significant hardships for children who, like other kids their age, are trying to attend school. They’re more likely to be absent, less likely to graduate and more likely to fall behind their age group academically. Stress, anxiety and low-self esteem are prevalent.
“Part of the challenge is that you have to convince [the students] that they are really capable,” says Bickle, who has been the Principal at the school since its founding in 1990. “Sometimes they say, ‘Oh, I’ll only be here a week or two, I’m not gonna stay.’ But you have to convince them to try hard. They don’t necessarily feel like they’re real success stories, so you have to work with them on that.”
According to Bickle, being around other kids experiencing the same difficulties can be easier for children who might feel otherwise feel alienated from their peers. “The children [at CTS] are often facing the same problems that everyone is facing in the room,” says Bickle in an interview posted on the school’s website. “They don’t have to be embarrassed about being homeless, they don’t have to be embarrassed about living in their car or only coming to school maybe once every three days because they’re moving around so much.”
CTS has four state-certified teachers, including Bickle, who teaches third through fifth grades, along with two full-time instructional assistants and one full-time teacher’s aide. There’s also a full-time teacher providing one-on-one instruction through a federally funded program called Title 1. A small staff of administrators and volunteers handle enrollment and transportation and other functions.
The school runs on a budget of approximately $1.4 million a year. The county chips in about $92,000, the rest is provided by foundations and other organizations and private individuals. Local charities and aid groups donate food, clothing and school supplies.
Unlike schools in the PPS system, CTS does not receive federal funding from the McKinney-Vento act, a federal law passed to better support homeless school children by funding transportation, meals, school supplies and other services. But with the help of the community and private donors, CTS has managed to endure for 35 years, and Bickle says the school is adequately funded.
Students are given two meals a day, free school supplies, soap, shampoo, other toiletries, donated clothing and other crucial items. Every weekend they are sent home with a bag of groceries provided by the Sunshine Division—a food based charity founded by the Portland Police Bureau in 1922. Twice a year dentists from the Tooth Taxi foundation come to the school offering free dental care. Once a year optometry students from Pacific College provide free eye exams.
CTS provides bus service to students across a 120 square-mile area. The routes are constantly changing to meet the needs of students who tend to move frequently.
“This school will help you no matter what,” says Divai, an eighth grader who has been attending CTS for four years. “If you live far, they’ll still go far to pick you up, they’ll come and drop you here, and take you back. They’ll do anything for you, to help you with anything that you need.”
It’s impossible to know the impact CTS has had on the community. Thousands of at risk kids have enrolled there over the years. Some stay and graduate the eight grade. Others are forced to leave by circumstances beyond their control. “That’s probably the most frustrating thing—the opportunities that they lose out when they have to leave,” says Bickle. “But then I also believe that along the way there will be other people helping all these kids. “
It’s clear the school has had a big impact on eight grader Diva, who will be moving on to high school in the fall. She’ll miss her friends. “They really make my day brighter. At home it’s usually a little boring, but then when I come here it’s just like, really bright.”
For more information about CTS, visit transitionalschool.org.
CTS Principal Cheryl Bickle. Photo by CTS.
