A massive ketchup spill stains a student’s t-shirt, leading to a feeling of embarrassment as they realize they’ll have to spend the rest of the day wearing it. However, a memory of the school closet comes to mind. This place is stocked with a variety of clothing items available for students to use.
At Texas High, the school closet actively serves the needs of students. The Family Resource Center provides needs for the community similar to that of the school closet. Whether an incident happens, in or out of school, such resources continue to help. Jo Dee Lott, an assistant principal at Texas High, runs the school closet in the back of her office.
“The school closet is clothes that we have been given or donated from various people, from various organizations,” Lott said. “Students can [use it] for whatever reason, whenever they need it.”
The accessibility and variety the closet offers are a big win for all who may use it.
“We have everything from socks to pants to sweaters to shirts to hoodies,” said Lott. “We have a lot of things that still have the tags on them.”
The school closet not only supplies students with their needs but further presents a bigger purpose: helping the Texas High student body.
“It represents a safety net for students, whether they’re just having a bad day, or maybe they have outgrown their clothes from last year,” Lott said.
At first, the closet brought clothes just for dress code reasons but grew in supply for other reasons to fit student needs.
“The word got around and more teachers started giving clothes,” Lott said. “An organization asked if we need jackets/coats and I said yes, which is how I got so many coats.”
The project director of the Family Resource Center, Rebekah Wagner, uses her past exposure to help the TISD community.
“We kind of took their ideas and then some of my past experience and melded it together into a full-fledged, intensive case management program,” Wagner said. “We can connect people to resources of all kinds.”
TISD applied for and received funding from the Stronger Connections Act, a part of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022. According to the Texas Education Agency, this legislation enhances mental health services and supports states in creating safer and more inclusive school environments.
“Our school district applied for that ‘Stronger Connections’ grant, and as part of the 2022 Safer Communities Act,” Wagner said. “So we got an allotment based on our needs.”
These resources provide and fill in the gap for students and people in need in this community.
“With this program, it allows us to organize those efforts together so that we can work as a community to be able to meet those needs more effectively,” Wagner said. “It takes a process that we were already doing, but it allows us to make it more sustainable going forward.”
