Reflections Magazine Issue #76 - Spring 2012 | Page 20

Alumni Feature

Reporting for Duty

Beth McCullough ’86 is on the Front Lines of Homeless Education
with Roadmap to Graduation Program

B

efore 2001, there weren’t many students reported homeless in
Lenawee County.
However, Beth Friedline McCullough knew there were, plenty of
them, in fact, when she started as the homeless liaison for Adrian Public
Schools more than 11 years ago.
“Some people politely said, ‘We didn’t have homeless people until
you came.’” McCullough said. “I said, ‘That’s not true. It’s just because
nobody counted.’”
Last year, more than 600 students were reported homeless in
Lenawee County. The 1986 Siena Heights University graduate has made
it her mission to make sure these students are counted—and count. Since
she helped start the unique Roadmap to Graduation program more than
seven years ago, 87 percent of those homeless students go on to attend
college—and 100 percent graduate. In fact, two of her 13 students last
year were valedictorians of their graduating class.
“This is for seniors who are on track to graduate,” said McCullough,
who works with Catholic Charities to place homeless students—most
of whom are 17 and 18 years of age—into foster homes during their time
in school. “When you take a kid out of poverty and put him basically
into a middle class home, you learn all of these unspoken rules that you
didn’t know.”
McCullough often works as a social “translator” between students
and the host families to help ease the transition, which can be difficult at
times. One student didn’t want to put clothes in a dresser because if he
needed to leave in the middle of the night, he could just grab two black
trash bags (one for clean clothes, the other for dirty) and go. The compromise: shelving. Shelves allowed him to see all of his clothes but still keep
them organized.
“I learn something every single week,” McCullough said. “Poverty
teaches some very interesting things.”
Most of the students in these situations were put there by family
issues, including incarceration and domestic violence.
“Hopefully (students) go to somebody’s house. But that doesn’t
always happen,” McCullough said. “I have kids sleeping outside this year. …
One kid lived in three different places during the school year. This is
her stability. This is her home. This is where she is going to see the same
people every day. It’s probably the safest place they can be.”

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Reflections Spring ’12

McCullough, who taught in the
Montessori program after graduating from college before becoming a
therapist, instructor and domestic
violence shelter director, pulls several
pieces together to form the Roadmap
program. Catholic Charities is already
licensed to place children in homes
and also provides a small stipend to
host families. She also works with
outside agencies to provide counseling for these students, as well as help
with the legal issues and paperwork.
And it is her job to make sure the students trust her and the program
—not an easy task. She calls the numerous students who visit her meagerlooking office on the back side of the high school “a parade of pain.”
“Sometimes I have to sit down and say ‘Good things happen in this
office. This is really all worth it.’ … (We are) dealing with hard questions.
Hard situations.”
However, McCullough said the payoff is well worth it.
“If you put them in a stable environment, it’s amazing what happens,”
she said of the homeless students. “The Roadmap to Graduation is cheaper
than prison. It’s cheaper than a shelter. It’s cheaper than a dropout. It’s a lot
of bang for your buck.”
While McCullough’s position is funded thanks to a government mandate, the Roadmap program is another matter. Resources are “maximized”
thanks to the continued role of Catholic Charities and by keeping the
parameters of the program focused on older high school students. But she
said the students themselves are why the program is ultimately successful.
“The kids I’m working with absolutely can drop out of school and they
don’t,” she said. “They sleep outside and come in the next day. Those are
incredible kids. They will sit there and tell you plainly, ‘I have to graduate
and I have to go on to college, because it’s the only way I can do better
than what my parents offered me.’ And they get that.”
McCullough and her program are gaining national notoriety. Last
year she presented at a national conference on homeless education, and
also testified at a Congressional caucus on homelessness. She said Siena
Heights mentors such as Sister Eileen Rice and Sister Anthonita Porta
were instrumental in developing her passion for social justice.
“They said to go out and change the world, and I did,” she said. “My
prayer in the morning is ‘I’m reporting for duty.’ Siena taught me that.” u