Students at Monarch School asked for a stage so the school began renting a nearby building, christening it the Chrysalis and making it a place to partner with the Barrio Logan neighborhood. (Photo courtesy Monarch School)

For decades, Monarch School has been the only K-12 school in the nation whose entire student population is unhoused. While the school had widespread community support, for the dignity of its 300 students, it often remained insular to outsiders.

“There is an energy of dignity, respect and acceptance that is palpable on this campus. It has been cultivated over years,” said Monarch School CEO Afira DeVries. “This place is magic.”

Amid a youth mental health crisis and increasing homelessness, the trauma-informed school is publicly reaching out to help other schools and tackle the youth homelessness issue head on. With its strong education programs and wrap-around social services on site, Monarch is offering itself as a model for other schools.

“We are in position to be able to say we’re not perfect or experts, but we know more than lots of other schools do because this is the business we’re in.”

In addition, the school’s new creative arts center the Chrysalis is doing more community outreach to give back to the neighborhood of Barrio Logan that has nourished the school for the past decade.

When it was founded in 1987, the school was located in Little Italy and was only for high school students. These students were often tasked with caring for younger siblings so the elementary and middle school classes were added. Today, most of the students are in elementary school.

As the school invites the community in, it continues to advocate for the needs of unhoused youth and families at a wider level. 

Mentoring program

Monarch School has long been the focus of outreach nationally and internationally because it is one of its kind, according to DeVries. Up til now, the school has been reactive rather than proactive in sharing their model with those who want to learn.

“One of the most important future visions we have, which is really starting now, is to create a training and mentoring facility here at Monarch,” DeVries said. “We know what we’re talking about. And it’s time for us to create space for others to learn from this.”

DeVries serves on the Regional Task Force on Homelessness where she advocates for all of the estimated 18,000 unhoused students in the San Diego school system.

“My role can’t just be about the 300 kids we educate here. It feels really important to me, for us, to serve as a well-educated advocate for the population generally,” she said.

Monarch School also has a unique approach to making the school a place of healing as well as learning that other schools want to model.

Monarch has three core practices in its approach. While those practices are not unique, the combination of those philosophies is unusual if not singular.

First, staff engage with students in a restorative way. They avoid punitive measures like suspensions and expulsions.

For instance, when students arrive late, rather than being reprimanded, they are welcomed by staff who say they are happy to see the students and proud of them for coming.

“You don’t know what they’ve had to go right in order to be there – the struggle before even coming to school,” said Ana Magdaleno, the school’s development manager.

When there’s a behavioral infraction, a discussion occurs about how that does not benefit the community and how to restore their place in the school family. Commitments are made and people move forward.

This is wildly divergent from traditional school models that prize authority highly and may even have ‘zero tolerance’ policies. DeVries said, “It’s hard work because it’s not easy. It’s also not fast. And it doesn’t necessarily give people who are used to authoritative and punitive action a sense of accomplishment. But it does create a sense of safety and a sense of belonging that is really critical to dignity.”

All staff and programs at Monarch School are trauma informed, the second practice DeVries touts in Monarch’s model. She knows all students at the school are experiencing complex trauma due to being unhoused – which often manifests as students feeling unsafe and disconnected from their community. They may also be food insecure and excessively mobile. Most of all, they have to manage the stigma of being homeless.

To address the needs of students, Monarch started employing its own staff of mental health professionals a few years ago after moving away from external contractors. These licensed clinicians provide group, family and one-on-one therapy.

The school also has a team of behavioral intervention specialists that can be deployed to classrooms and programs if a student is emotionally dysregulated. Their job is to help the child get regulated in their environment again.

“When you are unable to remain emotionally regulated, for whatever reason, the reaction that you’re going to get to that behavior is not going to make the matter worse. It’s hopefully making the matter better, because we’re going to spend time figuring out what’s at the root of it,” DeVries said. “That’s what being restorative is, and that’s what being trauma informed means.”

The final practice for the school’s philosophy is being strength-based. DeVries explained that often when a student is failing a class, the entire conversation at school focuses on that issue – which can be discouraging. Instead of focusing on the negative, Monarch tries to have conversations with students that are about what they are good at and how those skills can be maximized in other places.

Those practices blend to make Monarch a secure place for students, but the school offers unique services beyond just its approach to teaching.

Monarch School is a community school, meaning it partners with services to meet the needs of students on campus so they can focus on learning. Its campus has wrap-around services for the students and their families as well as case management.

“Some of those immediate, core basic needs are met here,” DeVries said.

There is a butterfly boutique where students can pick out donated clothes and shoes if they need them. There are also shower and laundry facilities.

The move to mentor other educators comes as the state of California has committed to spending $4.1 billion over seven years to convert schools in high-poverty areas into ‘community schools.’ The schools adapting to this model require examples of how this works and are turning to Monarch.

A community school approach is meant to break the barriers preventing students from succeeding. The barriers range from mental health issues to racism.

As an example, if a student is hungry, it affects their ability to concentrate. So, Monarch has a food pantry and weekly farmers market to provide nutrition to families. Being unhoused is traumatizing to students, so Monarch employs case managers that help families find permanent housing and connect to services. Shelters do not usually allow unhoused people to stay during the day so a wing of the Monarch campus is dedicated to parents so they have an air-conditioned place to stay with resume help, classes and ways to entertain kids under five years old. School becomes not just a place of stability in chaotic circumstances for students but their parents and siblings as well.

“Our unhoused students are hiding in plain sight in schools. They are very clearly underperforming and it’s not their fault,” DeVries said, noting that the statewide graduation rate for unhoused students is 69%. “Not everybody can be a Monarch School, but everybody can care about the same issues that Monarch School cares about.” 

Well-resourced school

The Monarch administration and teachers both highlight that they are willing to adapt and add new programs based on feedback from students and families. Part of the reason they can do so is because of how well-funded the school is.

“There are so many resources,” said Zaira Martinez, a former Monarch student who now works as the volunteer and community outreach coordinator.

Many homeless service agencies are stretched beyond their capacity. Case management often means coaching unhoused people about the best strategy to get a coveted shelter spot amid high competition. Waiting lists abound.

There is no waiting list to get into Monarch. The small student body of 300 students over 12 grades means the services provided are robust and plentiful. If the school needs something, the development team finds donors and grants. The ways in which the community helps the school is abundantly clear when talking to staff.

A visit from a Denny’s food truck, Coronado families organizing a Thanksgiving dinner, Specialty Produce donating raw ingredients to cooking classes are just a few of the donations mentioned during a tour of the facility. Volunteers are welcomed and drives for clothes and supplies are another way local businesses support the school.

“There’s always an opportunity to get involved here,” Martinez said. Community involvement also means the school can educate and advocate more for unhoused youth. “The people that wanna help, they wanna learn. Having that open connection with the community is really great.”

The school’s resources mean they can fulfill individual wishlists and meet needs specific to their population.

“We spend a lot of time talking to our students and their parents and caregivers about what is working for them in this campus environment and what is missing,” DeVries said.

At Launch Pointe, where high school students learn life skills and career readiness, director Marla Navarrete said the school’s fashion program began when one student told her he wanted to go into the fashion industry. In response, she bought sewing machines and supplies. Interest grew from one person to several as experts taught sewing and the ins and outs of the fashion industry.

“One of the things that becomes very special about the programs is the capacity to listen to the students and find out what their needs are… We will create based on the students’ needs,” Navarrete said. “We get to do that because we don’t have 50 kids in a class… We have 80 high school students.”

In another case, Navarrete organized a tour at San Diego Police Department’s crime lab for a student interested in a career in forensics.

Launch Pointe has STEM classes, a construction workshop and a lego engineering lab. Students are paid to attend these programs so they also learn job skills, like arriving on time to be paid a full wage. Since many of the older students are part of their family’s support system, the stipends mean they can focus on personal development while still providing for their families.

Unhoused students often do not know how to cook if they have never lived in a place with a full kitchen. The school offers cooking and nutrition classes for them to learn.

“It’s challenging to prepare meals and to know about ingredients and how to make a meal,” development manager Magdaleno explained.

Last year, 113 students were English as a Second Language learners so language development assistants are placed in many classrooms.

The school has strong athletics and arts programs. Wearing a uniform and being part of a team makes the students feel dignified. Art is healing in and of itself. Each of these programs is valued, as reflected in the budget.

“What can be rare in the art/education world is someone above you can really want a lot from you, but they don’t give you the resources to make it happen. What is beautiful at Monarch is all of those things have been aligned,” said Erika Malone, the director of creative youth development and community engagement at the Chrysalis, the institution’s new arts facility.

Those resources are being deployed to help other schools as well. Monarch’s clinicians now travel to San Ysidro’s Willow Elementary, where 400 of the 700 students are unhoused, to provide mental health services.

The Chrysalis is being developed into another site of community outreach.

“The community is starting to feel like it’s part of them,” Magdaleno said.

Chrysalis

The Chrysalis was opened in response to students asking for a stage. Place could not be found at the main campus so Monarch rented a building a few blocks away with space for visual and performing arts events. The arts are valued partially because of how healing they can be.

“When you provide a space for youth to share who they are authentically, to lead, to feel really safe and belong, it’s automatically healing,” Malone said.

Monarch School conducts research on students to track their socio-emotional learning competencies. According to Malone, students who participate in the arts have much higher scores.

“I have the data to prove that students feel like they can value school, they can feel safer, they can feel more connected to their identity, if they’re doing something in the arts,” she said.

In addition to music and theater programs for Monarch students, the facility is being utilized by families and Barrio Logan artists.

“Monarch used to be, it still is, a little bubble. 300 families know each other really well. But this is a place where… our kids are meeting kids from other schools. They’re having guest artists come in and perform with them, for them,” Malone said. “It’s a way to give them a connection to a bigger arts network and a bigger sense of the San Diego family.”

Three days a week, parents and children under five years old can attend free classes there. It’s open to the community although most of the parents are associated with Monarch currently. The San Diego Youth Symphony conducts ‘parent and me’ music classes on Wednesdays. On other days, parents have mindfulness, dance and other classes while young children play and make art in the next room, something Malone said is important for their development as many unhoused toddlers spend a large amount of time in strollers.

“They’re not having a typical toddler experience that someone who is housed would have, where they get to play and touch things and be on the floor,” she said.

As for parents, she said the number one comment she hears is that they did not get to have these enriching experiences as a child. They are able to have fun and let out their inner child. Based on requests, Malone is adding guitar lessons in the fall.

The site is also a place for the school to make connections with the LGBTQ+ community. DeVries said 13% of Monarch’s student populations is LGBTQ+ – sometimes because they have been kicked out from a family home due to their identity. The school marched in the Pride Parade for the first time this year as they seek to better support queer students and staff.

Right now, a gay asylum-seeker from Russia who happens to be a concert-level pianist and is staying at a shelter nearby uses the facility’s grand piano to practice. The Chrysalis hosted the youth and family day during the second annual Queer Mvmnt Fest.

Eventually, Malone hopes the Chrysalis will be the home base for a handful of arts organizations that put on full seasons in the facility. She said while Barrio Logan has a huge arts community, there are few spaces for performances and events.

“We want to be an affordable space for artists,” she said. “We see the Chrysalis as a place where the unhoused and … the greater San Diego community can intersect in really beautiful and powerful ways.”

She hopes to continue to rent the facility for the next few decades at least. She is already eying the neighboring unit as a place to build out a lounge for parents where they can eat and hang out.

“We are really excited, really for the first time, to be able to be part of our community in a different way… to be able to offer something back to this neighborhood that has taken such good care of our kids,” DeVries said.