August 25, 2025 • 32 mins
Sherrice Roness is the Students in Transition Coordinator or Homeless Liaison forBismarck Public Schools. She has been in this position for 9 years. She has been aLBSW (Licensed Social worker) in ND for 25 years. All 25 years of her career havebeen dedicated to working with at risk youth and their families. She has worked inmultiple positions including a School Social Worker on the Standing Rock Reservation, Coordinator of the South Central Juvenile Drug Court, In- Home Case Worker forBurleigh County Social Services, and a Guardian ad Litem for youth.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to These Are Your Neighbors, a podcast hosted by
the City of Bismarck's Human Relations Committee and produced by
Dakota Media Access. The purpose of the podcast is to
celebrate change makers in Bismarck whose contributions break barriers, build connections,
and redefine what is possible for our community.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome to These Your Neighbors, a podcast hosted by Tia
Jorgensen and Sargianna Whitsky, both members of the City of
Bismarck's Human Relations Committee. Thank you for joining us as
we highlight the individuals driving positive change and making a
lasting impact on our community. Their stories inspire progress and
shape the future of our city.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Our guest today is Sharis Rons. Sharissa is the Students
and Transition Coordinator or homelesslys ON for Bismarck Public Schools.
She has been in this position for nine years. She
has been a licensed social worker in North Dakota for
twenty five years. All twenty five years of her career
have been dedicated to working with at risk youth and
their families. She has worked in multiple positions, including a
(01:03):
school social worker on the Standing Rock Reservation, coordinator of
the South Central Juvenile drug court, in home case worker
for Burley County Social Services, and a guardian enlighten for youth.
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Thanks for having me. So why is Bismarck home for you?
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Well, I've been here my whole adult life. So after
I graduated college in two thousand, I moved here. My
husband and I had been recently married, and we always
talked about wanting to live in Bismarck and girl family here.
He's from the Beulah area, so he was familiar with it.
I grew up in the Rugby area and I've always
(01:41):
loved Bismarck, and so when we found jobs here, we
never left.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
So, of all the different things that you could go
into in college, why did you decide on social work?
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Well? I actually started in wanting to get my psychology degree,
and then I had a really good counselor that told
me at a school that if I got a psychology degree,
I probably wouldn't be able to do very much with
just that, and I'd have to get my master's. And
so I wasn't really liking school so much at that time,
(02:14):
and so thinking about going on further really didn't appease me,
and so we talked about kind of what I wanted
to do. I wanted to help kids. I wanted to
be in that kind of a counselar setting and work
with youth. And so then he suggested, you know, if
you go into social work, you have so many different varieties.
(02:35):
If you don't like working with youth and families, you
can maybe work in a nursing home or in a hospital,
or there's so many different varieties of things that social
workers can do. It's a four year degree, you get
a licensure, he said. I think that's really your best
best option. So that's what I did.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
So how far going into it into psychology did you
decide to change your major?
Speaker 4 (02:56):
It wasn't very much. I basically did one or two classes,
needed those anyway for my social work degree, So it
kind of worked out in the end.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
That's good because some kids take forever to sight on
a major and they've gone through many classes that they
didn't need.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yes, so you mentioned that you knew you wanted to
work with youth.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Why is that?
Speaker 1 (03:17):
So?
Speaker 4 (03:18):
I grew up, like I said, in the Rugby area,
very very small town named Wolford, and we had like
k through twelve was a school and we had about
seventy two kids through the entire school, so very small,
rural community, farmers, those kinds of things. And I started
(03:39):
struggling with my own mental health as I became a teenager,
and in order for me to get any kind of
counseling or beyond medications to where I needed to be
monitored once a week or once a month, even we
had to drive an hour just to just get that done.
Back then, you know, that really wasn't a really good
(04:02):
option for us between gas money. My parents both worked,
and so trying to you know, take you basically had
to take the whole day off from school when you
would go to an appointment or come back, and so
I didn't go as often as I probably should have.
We had a counselor in high school that I, you know,
got to know pretty well and felt comfortable talking about
(04:24):
certain things with, but not on a on a really
deep level that I probably needed to have. And so
not having that accessibility for me. And when I heard
that social workers it was kind of about the time
that I was getting my degree that they were going
into the schools. It was not common at all yet,
but they were starting to you were starting to see
(04:45):
it more and I thought, wow, what a great setting.
You know, I have access to the youth every day.
I can check in with them every day and just
be in that kind of setting where it was kind
of a neutral setting to where hopefully regaining trust and
things like that from them, they would be wanting to
(05:05):
talk about things or know that there was somebody safe
in the school that they could talk to about things.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
That's awesome. I think I think people sometimes forget, like
what a privilege it is to be able to access
matt to healthier absolut Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
It is very hard, even just being here in Bismarck.
It's maybe not the access to it, like physically getting
to the appointment, it's the how long the appointment takes
to get Like even the first initial one. You can
be in crisis and you know they make an appointment
four to six weeks out. That doesn't do anything, you know,
And so that is something that in my current position
(05:41):
that we struggle with all the time.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Yeah, so how common is it now for a school
to have a social worker?
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Well, in the area that I've lived in here now
with Bismarck, it's you know, our school district has been
really good in recent years of not only wanting to
get a social worker in each school, but to maybe
get multiple depending on the side of the school. And
I think they've done a really good job with making
that happen. There are some schools that have two social workers,
(06:12):
some are high schools are going to have three social workers,
and so that was just based upon their size. And
so I know in rural you know, the small town
still you might not see social worker, or the social
worker might be the social worker counselor you know, fay
ed teacher. I mean, they might be multiple roles, you know,
And so I don't think it's that common. I think
(06:34):
a lot of it has to do with funding. But
there's been a really big push, you know, in the
last five to seven years on mental health, especially amongst
our youth, and so there's been a lot of grant
money out there that you know, districts can access, you know,
to have that capability, you know, in their building.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
So can you walk us through what a role of
a social worker in a school is?
Speaker 4 (06:58):
Well, I can only go based upon my own experience,
which was twenty some years ago. But I mean I
work with all the social workers here in Bismarck, and
I would have to say, like their you know, their
first thing that they do is any mental health struggles
that may be a child in school is having. And
(07:20):
that can be mental health, it can be emotional, it
can be you know, learning having coping skills. It can
be just having plain skills, you know, you know, learning
how to wait or be patient or be mindful about others,
you know, space and those kinds of things. And being
(07:41):
able to meet with them, you know, maybe once to
even three times a week. They have that access to
that child in there. And so but I know all
the social workers I work with wear many many hats,
and so they're they're trying to meet with those kids,
and then they're trying to work with if there's a
distraction because the behavior in a classroom. And so if
(08:01):
a kid is acting out in a classroom and is
maybe becoming physical or is throwing a chair or doing
something like that and they have to be removed, that
first person they call is that social worker to come down.
She has the training to be able to hopefully de escalate,
to bring them old or her out of the classroom
and deal with it. Then they also are in IEP
meetings and having to write plans and behavioral plans and
(08:23):
follow them. Sometimes they're acting assistant principle so when they're
gone there, So yeah, they have many, many hats. It's
kudos to them for what they do. I think it's
a it's a profession that not a lot of people
really think about them having to do with on a
daily basis. We all like to think our kids go
to school and are perfect and don't act up and
(08:45):
you know, are bad. But that's not the case. And
so we try to as social workers, you know, bring
them back to a place where everybody can learn. But
we don't want to isolate them either, and so we
try and teach them the skills of staying in that
classroom and getting educated.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
And I know they're very involved. I have a few
friends that work for the district of social workers to
the point where I know one of them actually when
students don't show up to class, go to their homes
absolutely and yalk to the parents or guardians to make
sure the individual's okay and then to hopefully get them
to come to school school.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Yep, absolutely, Yeah, I know a lot of social workers
in our program. We have seven vans that are designated
to my program. And if I have an extra van
and somebody hears about it from a school, a social worker,
they're calling and saying, hey, I need to go check
on Johnny, Like can I come get the van and go,
you know, do that or whatnot. And so, yeah, they're
out there. Just because they're not in school doesn't mean
(09:43):
that they're not a part of that community.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
So it's pretty incredible too, like because especially with mental health,
you know, I think I'm pretty aware of mine, but
I see my psychiatrists or my psychologists once a month,
once every and so having those social workers being able
to see the behavior dated day to day and it's got.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
To just be that monitoring piece is huge. And I
think a lot of psychologists and psychiatric people that work
with those kids are very appreciative of that, because if
you're only getting the parents side of you know, well,
you know, the school says this, you know kind of thing.
But if they're taking documentation every day, as social workers are,
(10:24):
it's pounded in our head about document, document, document, you know,
about the behaviors, and then at that point maybe somebody
can see a pattern of something, maybe it's them whenever
they go stay with mom or dad for the weekend
and they come back they're just in an up or,
or they're super tired, or there's all these things that
might be happening, and they see a pattern and then
maybe they can help establish Okay, how do we treat
(10:46):
this now?
Speaker 3 (10:46):
And I know they also are good at accessing other
community programs to try to help kids in that as well.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Well. Yes, all the you know, they're always calling me
because we get a lot of those emails about flyers
of things events going on, especially for food and clothing
and school supplies and all those kinds of things. I
was just doing some flowers flowers flyers before I left
to come here about events that are going to be
(11:14):
giving out school supplies and things like that to get
out to the social workers. So when their families are
calling and saying where can I go? Where can I go,
they'll have those at their disposal.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
So that kind of ties into your current role as
the Students in Transition Coordinator or homeless liaison for Bismarck
Public Schools. What does your day to day what does
that entail?
Speaker 4 (11:36):
It's completely different every day, which is kind of the
fun part of my job. I guess it's never the same.
It's maybe doing the same task work, but you're always
working with different families with different dynamics and all of that.
But basically what I do is, I first I have
to identify the kids who are homeless, and so there's
(11:59):
kind of like four or five different ways. The definition
that we use for homeless is not living on the
streets or staying in their car necessarily. The definition we
use is from the Department of Education on the federal level.
It's and then there's a law that protects the homeless
children called McKinney Ventol Law. And that's my guidance as
(12:22):
far as what I can do with a homeless child,
as far as what are the barriers that we're seeing,
Why aren't they getting to school, those kinds of things.
But the basic things are the ways that they can
be identified is number one. Obviously, if they are in
their car, if then their family are living in their
car or a storage shelter or a garage, you know,
(12:46):
someplace that doesn't have running water, those kinds of things.
If they're in a camper or a campsite, you know
they would not automatically. But once we have a conversation
with them and kind of find out, you know, are
you living here temporarily? Are you just on a vcation, like,
you know, why are you here? They could they could
be considered homeless. Our biggest groups that we serve are
(13:08):
what we call doubled up. And so that's if my
family was evicted and I moved in with your family
until we could get save money or things like that
that we could get out on our own, that's called
doubled up. And then the other big area that we
work with our unaccompanied children, and that's a huge, great
area we could probably do a whole week of podcasts on.
(13:30):
But how I try to explain it the easiest is
that you know, if a child is living with somebody
else other than their biological parents in the home, like
so their bioparents are not in the home, and the
person that they're living with is considered their guardian. But
there's nothing legal in place. There's nothing to the court system,
there's no guardianship, there's no temporary custody order. The county
(13:52):
doesn't have custody. It's just mom and Dad were incarcerated
and now they went and stayed with Grandma or Auntie
or something like that, and there's no legal documentation. This
mcinnay mental law has made it so that person is
considered a caregiver in lieu of a parent, and they
had the same rights as an actual biological parent does.
(14:14):
And then I'm missing a group. Oh, all the shelters.
So any kid that is in any one of our
shelters in Bismarck is automatically in our program. And that's
kind of where we start identifying them through the like
right now when we come back from summer break.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
So then what do you do aside from ensuring that
you're serving that population. What are some of the things
you do with those kids or the families then during
your day.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
Yeah, so we can be problem solving. All these families
come with some kind of barrier, whether it's transportation, whether
it's financial. Maybe they need help finding housing, you know,
getting them connected with Maybe we can't provide a specific service,
but we know that Ministry on the Margins does. Maybe
they mentioned to us that they our need of hygiene products.
(15:01):
We have those on hand, We have school supplies on hand.
We provide them with winter gear. We have a lot
of families that come from other countries or other parts
of our nation that have never seen snow before. They
have no idea. And so I actually had to teach
an adult woman who was in her probably fifties or sixties,
how to teach her grandchildren to put snow pants and
(15:22):
snow boots on, because she thought they would take off
their actual pants and then put their snow patents on,
and then she thought the boots went over their actual shoes.
So she was getting them like, you know, way bigger size.
And so just those things that we take for granted
that we know how to do, just trying to help
them reduce those barriers, whatever that is of getting their
kids education.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
You mentioned doubled up, and I don't know if you
have the numbers with you, and it's okay if you don't,
But have you seen an increase in that. I know
there's like some concerns with rentals, Yeah, envisment.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Right now, we've actually seen an increase in all in
all of those areas with the double up. You know,
we have to be careful because sometimes it's a cultural thing.
Sometimes we have a lot of people coming from other
countries and that's in their culture. Gramma and Grandpa are
the head of the household and nobody else lives anywhere else.
They all live in So them living you know, four
(16:16):
families in a two bedroom apartment to them is great,
like that's what they're used to. It's a cultural thing.
It's not necessarily financial. Or you have people that maybe
it's kind of an exchange of surfaces to where I
work during the day. You watch my child, you know,
and do help me do daycare, and then I watch
your kids and I when you go to work. You know,
we just have this arrangement kind of made. So it
(16:38):
might be financial, but it's more about just being you know,
being able to make things work. And so those necessarily
don't come into our program. But that's where it gets
tricky because you sometimes have to ask some really maybe
embarrassing questions, or people are very shameful, or the biggest
thing I see is they think that because they say
(16:59):
something about, well, we had to stay in my car
last night, or we've been living in a tent, you know,
in Sibley Park, that immediately I call social services and
I want their kids taken away, you know, And that's
actually the furthest from the truth. Like we try and
you know, help them. We call around to the shelters
for them to see if there's openings. We try to
(17:21):
access any kind of services, you know, and obviously the
most important ones first and foremost, but trying to get
rid of that stigma of well, you're a social worker,
and if I tell you this, you're going to get
my parents in trouble, or I'm going to get my
parents in trouble and they're going to take me away.
And so sometimes it takes a little bit to establish
that trust with parents. They might not tell me right
(17:42):
away where they're at, but then we hear, maybe a
couple weeks later, the child's on the bus and is
constantly sleeping, and then the bus driver hears that child
say something about, you know, we've been sleeping outside. I
only have a sleeping bag. Or one kid actually was
sleeping underneath the stairwell in an apartment building because their
(18:03):
apartment was so crowded and there was no place other
than like in the living room where they were always
having parties at night and could not get any sleep,
and so we'd curl up underneath, you know, those kinds
of things. And then others in the district, lunch ladies, secretaries,
the people that they kind of feel they can say
those things around without oh it's a principle, or I
can't say that around so and so because I'll get
(18:25):
my family in trouble. And then they just kind of
pass on that information to us, and then we kind
of come in with a lot of empathy, a lot
of Hey, we're here to provide a service and we
are not here to take anything away from you. You know,
We're here to help you, and this is this is
what we can do. And then they kind of start
to open up.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Do a lot of school systems have a you or
a possession?
Speaker 4 (18:48):
Like in twenty fifteen, they revamped the McKinney Vento law
and they made it that every school district in America
is supposed to have a designated homeless liaison. Okay, so
if you just think about NARTA. When I first started
ten years ago, I was the only full time McKenny
(19:08):
VNTL or homeless liaison in North Dakota. I was the
only one that was my entire job. The rest of
the districts, it was they named the counselor, they named
the principal, the superintendent. They just had to name somebody.
It wasn't really somebody that maybe did the work and
the services, they just had to designate somebody. And then
now like for myself, I have I did have a
(19:31):
staff of two, but because of funding we had to
cut so I have a staff of another person and
I So we do the program for the entire district.
We also serve zero through five age range, so any
kids that are in like B set programming or early childhood,
we also serve those families. And then we serve up
to age twenty one. So if you got a kid
who because of their homelessness missed so much school, it's
(19:54):
taken them five or six years to get their high
school diploma. And now it's at the point where I'm
going to turn twenty one, I'm not gonna be able
to get it. I'm just gonna do my ged as
long as in not twenty one, we serve them as
well anything that anybody getting their education from zero through
twenty one.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Yeah, So on average, how many students are considered homeless
in our district.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
So this last year's numbers we were at four fifteen,
so that compares to the year before that we were
at four seventy four, so we were like about sixty
kids less than the year before, and we fluctuate around
between that four and five hundred. Recently, the biggest amount
(20:37):
that we've had is in right before COVID nineteen and
twenty that the school year of nineteen and twenty, we
had five hundred and twenty four. And that's since the
program started in two thousand and six. That's the largest
number we've had.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Do you think that's a true accurate number or do
you think we're missing.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
Over amazing absolutely, because when you look at our numbers,
like I had this PowerPoint that I do when I
go out into the communities and it says five twenty
four nineteen nineteen and twenty, and in twenty twenty one
we went down to four fifteen or something like that.
One hundred and fifty some kids less. Well. Homelessness didn't
(21:17):
go away because COVID came. It was because we didn't
have accessibility. We were online, we were doing everything through
We weren't you know, seeing those kids, seeing that they
were maybe dressed in the same clothes. We weren't catching
them sleeping. And those are the kids that really lost
out because they wouldn't log on, you know, they wouldn't
even though they had the computers, they had everything there.
(21:39):
They're just the their parents are struggling with maybe addiction
or mental health themselves, and you know, logging on I
mean they're in crisis right and they're just trying to
figure out where they're going to sleep at night. Like
logging on one day is not big to them or
their kids at that point. Their kids getting to school
is not that big a deal, Like, I got to
(21:59):
figure out where we're going to go so we're safe later.
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
So you did mention that you guys kind of partner
or work with ministry on the margin. Are there other
agencies that you work with?
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Oh, there's tons. I mean I'm part of the the
homeless coalition in the area and so all of that.
I mean we have I don't even know over thirty five.
Maybe we probably way hire agencies involved in that. But
we really work closely with Youth Works because any child
(22:32):
that goes into their transitional living program and is still
in high school we serve. So we have like bi
weekly staffings with them. Above the students that we're working
together with, all the shelters working with what their needs are,
you know, the United Way, the Welcome House and then yeah,
(22:54):
community resource, community options, and community action. They're really big.
It's kind of who eight incorporated in Mandan. It's kind
of really who has the funding to help our families?
And we help our families, you know, make that first
phone call or reach out, because sometimes when another agency
knows that the family's working with somebody else, it's a
(23:16):
little better of a kind of a soft hand off,
like Okay, you know, I can't provide that service, but
here they are and we've done this so far, Now
what can you do kind of a thing.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Yeah, I'm sure you work with Carrie's kids as well?
Speaker 4 (23:29):
Oh absolutely, yeah. And you know, I knew Carrie before
I got this job because when I worked at Juvenile
Drug Court, we had to do community service for the
kids and she was the person that we set up
community service with so all the kids would go to
her and do their community service. So I knew her
from that role beforehand. And when I got this job,
(23:49):
she was my first call, and I was like, when
can we get together and when can you tell me
like what I need to do and what's going to work,
what's not going to work? And yeah, we've been every
year we go together and staff things and even events,
and we try to get you know, get it out
all the programs that she offers, because it really is
all of our kids that she's serving for sure.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
So what would surprise someone about homeless students in our area?
Speaker 4 (24:16):
I think first the number, like the number that we have,
because when I go out in the community and I
say those numbers, I literally can see people's brains saying
there's no way because they don't see them. They lay
laying on the streets, they're not under the bridge, they're
not right that typical definition. And so I would say
the number is always the big shock value right away.
(24:36):
But I think if they sit down and think about
what a homeless student goes through in a day. You know,
we expect them to go to school, learn, be kind,
eat your lunch, play nice with others, you know, all
those kinds of things. And my kids are crabby. They
don't do that when they go to school. Let alone
a kid worrying about who's going to pick me up?
Because I know we don't have a car. Where are
(24:57):
we going to go? Am I going to be safe?
Going to be able have a blanket tonight? Are we
going to be able to eat somewhere, you know, all
of those things things that adults have to do every
day and think about every day, that kid is thinking
about that, and then they're supposed to try and be
nice and be you know, all those kinds of things.
So I think really sitting down and living a day
in the life of a homeless child, people would be
(25:20):
flabbergasted that they're even able to function and go to
a school every day.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
So how does that?
Speaker 2 (25:27):
You probably covered it, but is there any other ways
you can think how that impacts the challenges they're facing
in the classroom?
Speaker 4 (25:34):
Absolutely? I mean that, you know, the staying awake piece
is probably one of the biggest things ever, you know,
for them. Sometimes I'll get phone calls from school nurses
who say, little Johnny's been in here sleeping all morning
and it's like eleven, you know, and it's somebody that
we're working with, you know, and so we try and
contact the parent and just try and figure out, you know,
(25:57):
what's going on. Do you guys need help? And lun
Some times they're just like nope, refine and and that's
all we can do. And we can't force anybody to
work with us. But if we've come across that we're
concerned about their child and you know, what can we
do to help. They're pretty forthcoming about you know, yep,
the last three nights he's had to stay here or
you know. And sometimes we have parents that will sleep
(26:18):
in the car and the kids will be at sleepovers
with friends, you know, that's what they tell their kids. Oh,
you're gonna have a sleepover with so and soul, but
really it's and then mom and dad goes sleep in
the car. So we have a lot of situations like that. Obviously,
the acting out, you know, when they're in school and
they're and they're acting out like that. They have no
idea what's going on, They have no control of what's
going on, and so that that is the only thing
(26:41):
that they control is their own behavior, and sometimes they
can't even do that. So we see a lot of behaviors,
a lot of mental health issues amongst the kids that
experience homelessness. And then just the no focus, just the
staring off, just the not being able to you know,
do their math because they're thinking about a situation that
(27:02):
happened last night that made them feel uncomfortable and they
hope they don't go back there. You know, just those
scary things that again we take for granted if we
have a safe place over're our head every night, that
we don't really think about.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
So if community members wanted to make an impact on
the population and you serve, is there a way they
can do that.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
So we don't do a lot of like events or
things like that where we ask for volunteers just because
it's kind of more of a confidentiality thing. And so
we do things like I have a lot of churches
or groups like Girl Scouts or things. People will reach
out and say, you know, what do you need, Like
what do you need right now? And the need is
always different. Sometimes we are in need of like waundry items,
(27:43):
you know, so like soaps and even just the baskets
because they're going from place to place. Those baskets are
huge because it also packs their things when they're going
from place to place. The laundry detergent. I have laundry
vultures through eight Incorporated that I can hand out to them.
Sometimes it's sometimes it's hygiene items, you know. Sometimes it's
(28:05):
really specific items like we're really low on body shampoo
or you know, those kinds of things. So I have
a lot of churches they'll do drive, so they'll go
to their back to their congregation and they'll do a
shoe drive, or they'll do a you know, one year
I had a congregation that did a towel drive and
that was amazing because if you think about even staying
in the hotels, you know here they're not staying in
(28:25):
like the ones that have the pools and the content,
complimentary breakfast in the morning and all that kind of
stuff they're staying and ones that are really run down
and don't have the safest people there because you can't
you can't refrain from having a sex offender go to
a hotel, right, so they're not really you know, vetted
(28:46):
as far as like who's staying in that hotel. And
so a towel thing is just so every kid can
have their own towel set and they can take that
with them. It has a lot of things to do
with just your dignity and your pride too. You know,
we all know how the hotel towels are, right sometimes
they're just like little napkins. But to have a nice
towel that is your own and it's not your sisters
(29:08):
or it's not mom and dads sometimes can bring just
some simple joy. So it just kind of drives like
that obviously any monetary because then we can get what
we do need. So when something comes up, like oh,
we need all these Wincher boots, we have a bad
winter coming up, we can just go and get those boots.
So that's the nice thing about having a donation fun too.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Is there restrictions? And since you're your city city, well yeah,
it was.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
We're a government we're a government enterty. Yeah, because we're
a public school. But we do donations through the Bismarck
Community Foundation, Okay, yep, And so that's how we get
the monetary donations is through them.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
So something else, like when I heard about your position,
it was the first time I had heard it, and
that was at the Transportation Steering Committee, I know, someone
that works with the refugee population within the schools. Are
there any other kind of positions that are really just
there to serve Yeah, the students, I guess everyone does.
But yeah, the book that may not know AGAP.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
And that's exactly the one that I think about right
away is our EL program for English Language Learners. I
asked the coordinator for that program before I came here
and she said, we have over twenty countries represented in BPS,
and we have over fifty five different languages that are
being spoken. And so what that program does is, you know,
(30:28):
they test those kids right away when they're coming in
to see if, okay, what extra services are they going
to need? How far long are they in their English?
And it also is for parents too. Sometimes we have
families and a lot of those families are our families too,
where you know, the child might speak English, you know,
the seven year old might speak English, but mom and
dad don't, and so the child is actually translating for
(30:50):
us to be able to communicate with mom and dad.
So I think that program too, is one that is
kind of tucked away that nobody really thinks about. But
we've had more and more come from other countries because
of what's happening, you know, over there. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Great, well we're already out of time, but we do
have one last question that we ask everyone, Okay, and
the last question is how would you encourage others to
be a good neighbor.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
I would say try to just every day have a
little bit more empathy than you did before, because you
never really know what somebody is going through, like somebody
is really rude in the coffee line. Maybe they bost
their house that morning, maybe they foreclosed on their house.
Maybe their child is in trouble because you know, they're
behaving so poorly in school or things like that. Just
(31:39):
just having more empathy and kind of know what is
happening in your own children's lives, ask them about you know,
I always encourage students to go home and talk to
them mom and dad about our program. You know, do
you know how many homeless kids are there? And just
starting those conversations and just being aware of what's really
going on here in our community.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, great answer. Thanks to everyone for tuning into These
Are Your Neighbors with our guest Cheris Ronis.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
You're good.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Apologies. Thank you for wanting to get to know your
neighbors as we hold these important and necessary conversations. If
you found this conversation as important as we do, please
make sure to share it with your neighbors.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Thank you for tuning in to These Are Your Neighbors,
a podcast hosted by the City of Bismarck's Human Relations
Committee and produced by Dakota Media Access. We hope you
were inspired by the stories of citizens driving meaningful change
in Bismarck. For more info on the HRC, visit bizmarckand
dot gov
Welcome to These Are Your Neighbors, a podcast hosted by
the City of Bismarck's Human Relations Committee and produced by
Dakota Media Access. The purpose of the podcast is to
celebrate change makers in Bismarck whose contributions break barriers, build connections,
and redefine what is possible for our community.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome to These Your Neighbors, a podcast hosted by Tia
Jorgensen and Sargianna Whitsky, both members of the City of
Bismarck's Human Relations Committee. Thank you for joining us as
we highlight the individuals driving positive change and making a
lasting impact on our community. Their stories inspire progress and
shape the future of our city.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Our guest today is Sharis Rons. Sharissa is the Students
and Transition Coordinator or homelesslys ON for Bismarck Public Schools.
She has been in this position for nine years. She
has been a licensed social worker in North Dakota for
twenty five years. All twenty five years of her career
have been dedicated to working with at risk youth and
their families. She has worked in multiple positions, including a
(01:03):
school social worker on the Standing Rock Reservation, coordinator of
the South Central Juvenile drug court, in home case worker
for Burley County Social Services, and a guardian enlighten for youth.
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Thanks for having me. So why is Bismarck home for you?
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Well, I've been here my whole adult life. So after
I graduated college in two thousand, I moved here. My
husband and I had been recently married, and we always
talked about wanting to live in Bismarck and girl family here.
He's from the Beulah area, so he was familiar with it.
I grew up in the Rugby area and I've always
(01:41):
loved Bismarck, and so when we found jobs here, we
never left.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
So, of all the different things that you could go
into in college, why did you decide on social work?
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Well? I actually started in wanting to get my psychology degree,
and then I had a really good counselor that told
me at a school that if I got a psychology degree,
I probably wouldn't be able to do very much with
just that, and I'd have to get my master's. And
so I wasn't really liking school so much at that time,
(02:14):
and so thinking about going on further really didn't appease me,
and so we talked about kind of what I wanted
to do. I wanted to help kids. I wanted to
be in that kind of a counselar setting and work
with youth. And so then he suggested, you know, if
you go into social work, you have so many different varieties.
(02:35):
If you don't like working with youth and families, you
can maybe work in a nursing home or in a hospital,
or there's so many different varieties of things that social
workers can do. It's a four year degree, you get
a licensure, he said. I think that's really your best
best option. So that's what I did.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
So how far going into it into psychology did you
decide to change your major?
Speaker 4 (02:56):
It wasn't very much. I basically did one or two classes,
needed those anyway for my social work degree, So it
kind of worked out in the end.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
That's good because some kids take forever to sight on
a major and they've gone through many classes that they
didn't need.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yes, so you mentioned that you knew you wanted to
work with youth.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Why is that?
Speaker 1 (03:17):
So?
Speaker 4 (03:18):
I grew up, like I said, in the Rugby area,
very very small town named Wolford, and we had like
k through twelve was a school and we had about
seventy two kids through the entire school, so very small,
rural community, farmers, those kinds of things. And I started
(03:39):
struggling with my own mental health as I became a teenager,
and in order for me to get any kind of
counseling or beyond medications to where I needed to be
monitored once a week or once a month, even we
had to drive an hour just to just get that done.
Back then, you know, that really wasn't a really good
(04:02):
option for us between gas money. My parents both worked,
and so trying to you know, take you basically had
to take the whole day off from school when you
would go to an appointment or come back, and so
I didn't go as often as I probably should have.
We had a counselor in high school that I, you know,
got to know pretty well and felt comfortable talking about
(04:24):
certain things with, but not on a on a really
deep level that I probably needed to have. And so
not having that accessibility for me. And when I heard
that social workers it was kind of about the time
that I was getting my degree that they were going
into the schools. It was not common at all yet,
but they were starting to you were starting to see
(04:45):
it more and I thought, wow, what a great setting.
You know, I have access to the youth every day.
I can check in with them every day and just
be in that kind of setting where it was kind
of a neutral setting to where hopefully regaining trust and
things like that from them, they would be wanting to
(05:05):
talk about things or know that there was somebody safe
in the school that they could talk to about things.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
That's awesome. I think I think people sometimes forget, like
what a privilege it is to be able to access
matt to healthier absolut Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
It is very hard, even just being here in Bismarck.
It's maybe not the access to it, like physically getting
to the appointment, it's the how long the appointment takes
to get Like even the first initial one. You can
be in crisis and you know they make an appointment
four to six weeks out. That doesn't do anything, you know,
And so that is something that in my current position
(05:41):
that we struggle with all the time.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Yeah, so how common is it now for a school
to have a social worker?
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Well, in the area that I've lived in here now
with Bismarck, it's you know, our school district has been
really good in recent years of not only wanting to
get a social worker in each school, but to maybe
get multiple depending on the side of the school. And
I think they've done a really good job with making
that happen. There are some schools that have two social workers,
(06:12):
some are high schools are going to have three social workers,
and so that was just based upon their size. And
so I know in rural you know, the small town
still you might not see social worker, or the social
worker might be the social worker counselor you know, fay
ed teacher. I mean, they might be multiple roles, you know,
And so I don't think it's that common. I think
(06:34):
a lot of it has to do with funding. But
there's been a really big push, you know, in the
last five to seven years on mental health, especially amongst
our youth, and so there's been a lot of grant
money out there that you know, districts can access, you know,
to have that capability, you know, in their building.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
So can you walk us through what a role of
a social worker in a school is?
Speaker 4 (06:58):
Well, I can only go based upon my own experience,
which was twenty some years ago. But I mean I
work with all the social workers here in Bismarck, and
I would have to say, like their you know, their
first thing that they do is any mental health struggles
that may be a child in school is having. And
(07:20):
that can be mental health, it can be emotional, it
can be you know, learning having coping skills. It can
be just having plain skills, you know, you know, learning
how to wait or be patient or be mindful about others,
you know, space and those kinds of things. And being
(07:41):
able to meet with them, you know, maybe once to
even three times a week. They have that access to
that child in there. And so but I know all
the social workers I work with wear many many hats,
and so they're they're trying to meet with those kids,
and then they're trying to work with if there's a
distraction because the behavior in a classroom. And so if
(08:01):
a kid is acting out in a classroom and is
maybe becoming physical or is throwing a chair or doing
something like that and they have to be removed, that
first person they call is that social worker to come down.
She has the training to be able to hopefully de escalate,
to bring them old or her out of the classroom
and deal with it. Then they also are in IEP
meetings and having to write plans and behavioral plans and
(08:23):
follow them. Sometimes they're acting assistant principle so when they're
gone there, So yeah, they have many, many hats. It's
kudos to them for what they do. I think it's
a it's a profession that not a lot of people
really think about them having to do with on a
daily basis. We all like to think our kids go
to school and are perfect and don't act up and
(08:45):
you know, are bad. But that's not the case. And
so we try to as social workers, you know, bring
them back to a place where everybody can learn. But
we don't want to isolate them either, and so we
try and teach them the skills of staying in that
classroom and getting educated.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
And I know they're very involved. I have a few
friends that work for the district of social workers to
the point where I know one of them actually when
students don't show up to class, go to their homes
absolutely and yalk to the parents or guardians to make
sure the individual's okay and then to hopefully get them
to come to school school.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Yep, absolutely, Yeah, I know a lot of social workers
in our program. We have seven vans that are designated
to my program. And if I have an extra van
and somebody hears about it from a school, a social worker,
they're calling and saying, hey, I need to go check
on Johnny, Like can I come get the van and go,
you know, do that or whatnot. And so, yeah, they're
out there. Just because they're not in school doesn't mean
(09:43):
that they're not a part of that community.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
So it's pretty incredible too, like because especially with mental health,
you know, I think I'm pretty aware of mine, but
I see my psychiatrists or my psychologists once a month,
once every and so having those social workers being able
to see the behavior dated day to day and it's got.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
To just be that monitoring piece is huge. And I
think a lot of psychologists and psychiatric people that work
with those kids are very appreciative of that, because if
you're only getting the parents side of you know, well,
you know, the school says this, you know kind of thing.
But if they're taking documentation every day, as social workers are,
(10:24):
it's pounded in our head about document, document, document, you know,
about the behaviors, and then at that point maybe somebody
can see a pattern of something, maybe it's them whenever
they go stay with mom or dad for the weekend
and they come back they're just in an up or,
or they're super tired, or there's all these things that
might be happening, and they see a pattern and then
maybe they can help establish Okay, how do we treat
(10:46):
this now?
Speaker 3 (10:46):
And I know they also are good at accessing other
community programs to try to help kids in that as well.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Well. Yes, all the you know, they're always calling me
because we get a lot of those emails about flyers
of things events going on, especially for food and clothing
and school supplies and all those kinds of things. I
was just doing some flowers flowers flyers before I left
to come here about events that are going to be
(11:14):
giving out school supplies and things like that to get
out to the social workers. So when their families are
calling and saying where can I go? Where can I go,
they'll have those at their disposal.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
So that kind of ties into your current role as
the Students in Transition Coordinator or homeless liaison for Bismarck
Public Schools. What does your day to day what does
that entail?
Speaker 4 (11:36):
It's completely different every day, which is kind of the
fun part of my job. I guess it's never the same.
It's maybe doing the same task work, but you're always
working with different families with different dynamics and all of that.
But basically what I do is, I first I have
to identify the kids who are homeless, and so there's
(11:59):
kind of like four or five different ways. The definition
that we use for homeless is not living on the
streets or staying in their car necessarily. The definition we
use is from the Department of Education on the federal level.
It's and then there's a law that protects the homeless
children called McKinney Ventol Law. And that's my guidance as
(12:22):
far as what I can do with a homeless child,
as far as what are the barriers that we're seeing,
Why aren't they getting to school, those kinds of things.
But the basic things are the ways that they can
be identified is number one. Obviously, if they are in
their car, if then their family are living in their
car or a storage shelter or a garage, you know,
(12:46):
someplace that doesn't have running water, those kinds of things.
If they're in a camper or a campsite, you know
they would not automatically. But once we have a conversation
with them and kind of find out, you know, are
you living here temporarily? Are you just on a vcation, like,
you know, why are you here? They could they could
be considered homeless. Our biggest groups that we serve are
(13:08):
what we call doubled up. And so that's if my
family was evicted and I moved in with your family
until we could get save money or things like that
that we could get out on our own, that's called
doubled up. And then the other big area that we
work with our unaccompanied children, and that's a huge, great
area we could probably do a whole week of podcasts on.
(13:30):
But how I try to explain it the easiest is
that you know, if a child is living with somebody
else other than their biological parents in the home, like
so their bioparents are not in the home, and the
person that they're living with is considered their guardian. But
there's nothing legal in place. There's nothing to the court system,
there's no guardianship, there's no temporary custody order. The county
(13:52):
doesn't have custody. It's just mom and Dad were incarcerated
and now they went and stayed with Grandma or Auntie
or something like that, and there's no legal documentation. This
mcinnay mental law has made it so that person is
considered a caregiver in lieu of a parent, and they
had the same rights as an actual biological parent does.
(14:14):
And then I'm missing a group. Oh, all the shelters.
So any kid that is in any one of our
shelters in Bismarck is automatically in our program. And that's
kind of where we start identifying them through the like
right now when we come back from summer break.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
So then what do you do aside from ensuring that
you're serving that population. What are some of the things
you do with those kids or the families then during
your day.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
Yeah, so we can be problem solving. All these families
come with some kind of barrier, whether it's transportation, whether
it's financial. Maybe they need help finding housing, you know,
getting them connected with Maybe we can't provide a specific service,
but we know that Ministry on the Margins does. Maybe
they mentioned to us that they our need of hygiene products.
(15:01):
We have those on hand, We have school supplies on hand.
We provide them with winter gear. We have a lot
of families that come from other countries or other parts
of our nation that have never seen snow before. They
have no idea. And so I actually had to teach
an adult woman who was in her probably fifties or sixties,
how to teach her grandchildren to put snow pants and
(15:22):
snow boots on, because she thought they would take off
their actual pants and then put their snow patents on,
and then she thought the boots went over their actual shoes.
So she was getting them like, you know, way bigger size.
And so just those things that we take for granted
that we know how to do, just trying to help
them reduce those barriers, whatever that is of getting their
kids education.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
You mentioned doubled up, and I don't know if you
have the numbers with you, and it's okay if you don't,
But have you seen an increase in that. I know
there's like some concerns with rentals, Yeah, envisment.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Right now, we've actually seen an increase in all in
all of those areas with the double up. You know,
we have to be careful because sometimes it's a cultural thing.
Sometimes we have a lot of people coming from other
countries and that's in their culture. Gramma and Grandpa are
the head of the household and nobody else lives anywhere else.
They all live in So them living you know, four
(16:16):
families in a two bedroom apartment to them is great,
like that's what they're used to. It's a cultural thing.
It's not necessarily financial. Or you have people that maybe
it's kind of an exchange of surfaces to where I
work during the day. You watch my child, you know,
and do help me do daycare, and then I watch
your kids and I when you go to work. You know,
we just have this arrangement kind of made. So it
(16:38):
might be financial, but it's more about just being you know,
being able to make things work. And so those necessarily
don't come into our program. But that's where it gets
tricky because you sometimes have to ask some really maybe
embarrassing questions, or people are very shameful, or the biggest
thing I see is they think that because they say
(16:59):
something about, well, we had to stay in my car
last night, or we've been living in a tent, you know,
in Sibley Park, that immediately I call social services and
I want their kids taken away, you know, And that's
actually the furthest from the truth. Like we try and
you know, help them. We call around to the shelters
for them to see if there's openings. We try to
(17:21):
access any kind of services, you know, and obviously the
most important ones first and foremost, but trying to get
rid of that stigma of well, you're a social worker,
and if I tell you this, you're going to get
my parents in trouble, or I'm going to get my
parents in trouble and they're going to take me away.
And so sometimes it takes a little bit to establish
that trust with parents. They might not tell me right
(17:42):
away where they're at, but then we hear, maybe a
couple weeks later, the child's on the bus and is
constantly sleeping, and then the bus driver hears that child
say something about, you know, we've been sleeping outside. I
only have a sleeping bag. Or one kid actually was
sleeping underneath the stairwell in an apartment building because their
(18:03):
apartment was so crowded and there was no place other
than like in the living room where they were always
having parties at night and could not get any sleep,
and so we'd curl up underneath, you know, those kinds
of things. And then others in the district, lunch ladies, secretaries,
the people that they kind of feel they can say
those things around without oh it's a principle, or I
can't say that around so and so because I'll get
(18:25):
my family in trouble. And then they just kind of
pass on that information to us, and then we kind
of come in with a lot of empathy, a lot
of Hey, we're here to provide a service and we
are not here to take anything away from you. You know,
We're here to help you, and this is this is
what we can do. And then they kind of start
to open up.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Do a lot of school systems have a you or
a possession?
Speaker 4 (18:48):
Like in twenty fifteen, they revamped the McKinney Vento law
and they made it that every school district in America
is supposed to have a designated homeless liaison. Okay, so
if you just think about NARTA. When I first started
ten years ago, I was the only full time McKenny
(19:08):
VNTL or homeless liaison in North Dakota. I was the
only one that was my entire job. The rest of
the districts, it was they named the counselor, they named
the principal, the superintendent. They just had to name somebody.
It wasn't really somebody that maybe did the work and
the services, they just had to designate somebody. And then
now like for myself, I have I did have a
(19:31):
staff of two, but because of funding we had to
cut so I have a staff of another person and
I So we do the program for the entire district.
We also serve zero through five age range, so any
kids that are in like B set programming or early childhood,
we also serve those families. And then we serve up
to age twenty one. So if you got a kid
who because of their homelessness missed so much school, it's
(19:54):
taken them five or six years to get their high
school diploma. And now it's at the point where I'm
going to turn twenty one, I'm not gonna be able
to get it. I'm just gonna do my ged as
long as in not twenty one, we serve them as
well anything that anybody getting their education from zero through
twenty one.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Yeah, So on average, how many students are considered homeless
in our district.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
So this last year's numbers we were at four fifteen,
so that compares to the year before that we were
at four seventy four, so we were like about sixty
kids less than the year before, and we fluctuate around
between that four and five hundred. Recently, the biggest amount
(20:37):
that we've had is in right before COVID nineteen and
twenty that the school year of nineteen and twenty, we
had five hundred and twenty four. And that's since the
program started in two thousand and six. That's the largest
number we've had.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Do you think that's a true accurate number or do
you think we're missing.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
Over amazing absolutely, because when you look at our numbers,
like I had this PowerPoint that I do when I
go out into the communities and it says five twenty
four nineteen nineteen and twenty, and in twenty twenty one
we went down to four fifteen or something like that.
One hundred and fifty some kids less. Well. Homelessness didn't
(21:17):
go away because COVID came. It was because we didn't
have accessibility. We were online, we were doing everything through
We weren't you know, seeing those kids, seeing that they
were maybe dressed in the same clothes. We weren't catching
them sleeping. And those are the kids that really lost
out because they wouldn't log on, you know, they wouldn't
even though they had the computers, they had everything there.
(21:39):
They're just the their parents are struggling with maybe addiction
or mental health themselves, and you know, logging on I
mean they're in crisis right and they're just trying to
figure out where they're going to sleep at night. Like
logging on one day is not big to them or
their kids at that point. Their kids getting to school
is not that big a deal, Like, I got to
(21:59):
figure out where we're going to go so we're safe later.
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
So you did mention that you guys kind of partner
or work with ministry on the margin. Are there other
agencies that you work with?
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Oh, there's tons. I mean I'm part of the the
homeless coalition in the area and so all of that.
I mean we have I don't even know over thirty five.
Maybe we probably way hire agencies involved in that. But
we really work closely with Youth Works because any child
(22:32):
that goes into their transitional living program and is still
in high school we serve. So we have like bi
weekly staffings with them. Above the students that we're working
together with, all the shelters working with what their needs are,
you know, the United Way, the Welcome House and then yeah,
(22:54):
community resource, community options, and community action. They're really big.
It's kind of who eight incorporated in Mandan. It's kind
of really who has the funding to help our families?
And we help our families, you know, make that first
phone call or reach out, because sometimes when another agency
knows that the family's working with somebody else, it's a
(23:16):
little better of a kind of a soft hand off,
like Okay, you know, I can't provide that service, but
here they are and we've done this so far, Now
what can you do kind of a thing.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Yeah, I'm sure you work with Carrie's kids as well?
Speaker 4 (23:29):
Oh absolutely, yeah. And you know, I knew Carrie before
I got this job because when I worked at Juvenile
Drug Court, we had to do community service for the
kids and she was the person that we set up
community service with so all the kids would go to
her and do their community service. So I knew her
from that role beforehand. And when I got this job,
(23:49):
she was my first call, and I was like, when
can we get together and when can you tell me
like what I need to do and what's going to work,
what's not going to work? And yeah, we've been every
year we go together and staff things and even events,
and we try to get you know, get it out
all the programs that she offers, because it really is
all of our kids that she's serving for sure.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
So what would surprise someone about homeless students in our area?
Speaker 4 (24:16):
I think first the number, like the number that we have,
because when I go out in the community and I
say those numbers, I literally can see people's brains saying
there's no way because they don't see them. They lay
laying on the streets, they're not under the bridge, they're
not right that typical definition. And so I would say
the number is always the big shock value right away.
(24:36):
But I think if they sit down and think about
what a homeless student goes through in a day. You know,
we expect them to go to school, learn, be kind,
eat your lunch, play nice with others, you know, all
those kinds of things. And my kids are crabby. They
don't do that when they go to school. Let alone
a kid worrying about who's going to pick me up?
Because I know we don't have a car. Where are
(24:57):
we going to go? Am I going to be safe?
Going to be able have a blanket tonight? Are we
going to be able to eat somewhere, you know, all
of those things things that adults have to do every
day and think about every day, that kid is thinking
about that, and then they're supposed to try and be
nice and be you know, all those kinds of things.
So I think really sitting down and living a day
in the life of a homeless child, people would be
(25:20):
flabbergasted that they're even able to function and go to
a school every day.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
So how does that?
Speaker 2 (25:27):
You probably covered it, but is there any other ways
you can think how that impacts the challenges they're facing
in the classroom?
Speaker 4 (25:34):
Absolutely? I mean that, you know, the staying awake piece
is probably one of the biggest things ever, you know,
for them. Sometimes I'll get phone calls from school nurses
who say, little Johnny's been in here sleeping all morning
and it's like eleven, you know, and it's somebody that
we're working with, you know, and so we try and
contact the parent and just try and figure out, you know,
(25:57):
what's going on. Do you guys need help? And lun
Some times they're just like nope, refine and and that's
all we can do. And we can't force anybody to
work with us. But if we've come across that we're
concerned about their child and you know, what can we
do to help. They're pretty forthcoming about you know, yep,
the last three nights he's had to stay here or
you know. And sometimes we have parents that will sleep
(26:18):
in the car and the kids will be at sleepovers
with friends, you know, that's what they tell their kids. Oh,
you're gonna have a sleepover with so and soul, but
really it's and then mom and dad goes sleep in
the car. So we have a lot of situations like that. Obviously,
the acting out, you know, when they're in school and
they're and they're acting out like that. They have no
idea what's going on, They have no control of what's
going on, and so that that is the only thing
(26:41):
that they control is their own behavior, and sometimes they
can't even do that. So we see a lot of behaviors,
a lot of mental health issues amongst the kids that
experience homelessness. And then just the no focus, just the
staring off, just the not being able to you know,
do their math because they're thinking about a situation that
(27:02):
happened last night that made them feel uncomfortable and they
hope they don't go back there. You know, just those
scary things that again we take for granted if we
have a safe place over're our head every night, that
we don't really think about.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
So if community members wanted to make an impact on
the population and you serve, is there a way they
can do that.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
So we don't do a lot of like events or
things like that where we ask for volunteers just because
it's kind of more of a confidentiality thing. And so
we do things like I have a lot of churches
or groups like Girl Scouts or things. People will reach
out and say, you know, what do you need, Like
what do you need right now? And the need is
always different. Sometimes we are in need of like waundry items,
(27:43):
you know, so like soaps and even just the baskets
because they're going from place to place. Those baskets are
huge because it also packs their things when they're going
from place to place. The laundry detergent. I have laundry
vultures through eight Incorporated that I can hand out to them.
Sometimes it's sometimes it's hygiene items, you know. Sometimes it's
(28:05):
really specific items like we're really low on body shampoo
or you know, those kinds of things. So I have
a lot of churches they'll do drive, so they'll go
to their back to their congregation and they'll do a
shoe drive, or they'll do a you know, one year
I had a congregation that did a towel drive and
that was amazing because if you think about even staying
in the hotels, you know here they're not staying in
(28:25):
like the ones that have the pools and the content,
complimentary breakfast in the morning and all that kind of
stuff they're staying and ones that are really run down
and don't have the safest people there because you can't
you can't refrain from having a sex offender go to
a hotel, right, so they're not really you know, vetted
(28:46):
as far as like who's staying in that hotel. And
so a towel thing is just so every kid can
have their own towel set and they can take that
with them. It has a lot of things to do
with just your dignity and your pride too. You know,
we all know how the hotel towels are, right sometimes
they're just like little napkins. But to have a nice
towel that is your own and it's not your sisters
(29:08):
or it's not mom and dads sometimes can bring just
some simple joy. So it just kind of drives like
that obviously any monetary because then we can get what
we do need. So when something comes up, like oh,
we need all these Wincher boots, we have a bad
winter coming up, we can just go and get those boots.
So that's the nice thing about having a donation fun too.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Is there restrictions? And since you're your city city, well yeah,
it was.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
We're a government we're a government enterty. Yeah, because we're
a public school. But we do donations through the Bismarck
Community Foundation, Okay, yep, And so that's how we get
the monetary donations is through them.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
So something else, like when I heard about your position,
it was the first time I had heard it, and
that was at the Transportation Steering Committee, I know, someone
that works with the refugee population within the schools. Are
there any other kind of positions that are really just
there to serve Yeah, the students, I guess everyone does.
But yeah, the book that may not know AGAP.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
And that's exactly the one that I think about right
away is our EL program for English Language Learners. I
asked the coordinator for that program before I came here
and she said, we have over twenty countries represented in BPS,
and we have over fifty five different languages that are
being spoken. And so what that program does is, you know,
(30:28):
they test those kids right away when they're coming in
to see if, okay, what extra services are they going
to need? How far long are they in their English?
And it also is for parents too. Sometimes we have
families and a lot of those families are our families too,
where you know, the child might speak English, you know,
the seven year old might speak English, but mom and
dad don't, and so the child is actually translating for
(30:50):
us to be able to communicate with mom and dad.
So I think that program too, is one that is
kind of tucked away that nobody really thinks about. But
we've had more and more come from other countries because
of what's happening, you know, over there. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Great, well we're already out of time, but we do
have one last question that we ask everyone, Okay, and
the last question is how would you encourage others to
be a good neighbor.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
I would say try to just every day have a
little bit more empathy than you did before, because you
never really know what somebody is going through, like somebody
is really rude in the coffee line. Maybe they bost
their house that morning, maybe they foreclosed on their house.
Maybe their child is in trouble because you know, they're
behaving so poorly in school or things like that. Just
(31:39):
just having more empathy and kind of know what is
happening in your own children's lives, ask them about you know,
I always encourage students to go home and talk to
them mom and dad about our program. You know, do
you know how many homeless kids are there? And just
starting those conversations and just being aware of what's really
going on here in our community.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, great answer. Thanks to everyone for tuning into These
Are Your Neighbors with our guest Cheris Ronis.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
You're good.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Apologies. Thank you for wanting to get to know your
neighbors as we hold these important and necessary conversations. If
you found this conversation as important as we do, please
make sure to share it with your neighbors.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Thank you for tuning in to These Are Your Neighbors,
a podcast hosted by the City of Bismarck's Human Relations
Committee and produced by Dakota Media Access. We hope you
were inspired by the stories of citizens driving meaningful change
in Bismarck. For more info on the HRC, visit bizmarckand
dot gov
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