When California students go to school hungry, with no pencils or paper in their backpacks, or miss school often because they are ill and can’t afford medication, there is often someone waiting to help.

A teacher.

Teachers will be the first to tell you how devastating poverty can be for a student’s ability to learn, pay attention in school or just make it to class. Nearly nine in 10 teachers say poverty is a barrier to learning, according to a nationwide survey by the non-profit organization Communities in Schools. Chronic absenteeism and poor health, both often tied to poverty, also topped teachers’ list of why kids have trouble academically.

Ever dedicated to students, teachers are willing to dig into their pockets to help. Nine in 10 have bought supplies for students, according to the Communities in Schools survey. About half have paid to feed or clothe students or help them and their families through a crisis.

Finding ways to boost the chances of low-income students is always a challenge, especially at schools with high numbers of low-income students. So we must remember that schools with high concentrations of poverty don’t simply need teachers with deeper pockets. They need programs proven to improve the academic achievement of low-income children.

Because, of course, teachers alone can’t solve poverty or keep children and schools from feeling its effects on academic achievement. Far too many children need assistance, and they need it intensively.

In California, 57 percent of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, which is higher than the national average of 50 percent.

And the achievement gap for low-income California students is startling: Fewer than one-quarter of them meet or exceed state standards in math, and just above one-third meet or exceed state standards in English.

On top of that, race and immigration interact with poverty in the context of education. Across Southern California, students of color in low-income schools, in communities with few resources, fair less well academically than both their equally advantaged white peers and their more privileged peers of all backgrounds.

So it’s good news that a recent tweak to the federal funding stream, called Title I, that helps local school districts support low-income students academically, makes clear that schools can use these funds to connect students with exactly the help they need to stay in school.

The effective use of Title I funds will be the focus of discussion for thousands of Title I administrators who are meeting in Long Beach this week for their annual conference. Among the topics they’ll discuss is specific language in the Every Student Succeeds Act, passed just over a year ago to reauthorize the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Reauthorization allows local communities to tap Title I funding for schoolwide programs that provide Integrated Student Supports (such as mentoring, mental health services, homework assistance and clothing).

Such programs aim to remove all the barriers to student achievement by putting in the school a trained staffer who partners with teachers to connect students with the resources they need to thrive, whether it’s helping them get new shoes or clean clothes that spark self-confidence or meeting more complex needs by building one-to-one relationships with a caring adult.

The approach has already been successful in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where Communities in Schools of Los Angeles — the region’s largest provider of evidence-based Integrated Student Supports — partners with the district to bolster students’ ability to achieve with coordinated, comprehensive support.

Across the state and across the country, the payoff of using Title I funding for Integrated Student Supports could be enormous for low-income students. In Communities in Schools programs around the country, 99 percent of students stay in school, 93 percent are promoted to the next grade, and 88 percent meet academic improvement goals.

For local communities, offering comprehensive services could be the difference between closing the achievement gap between rich and poor students and watching it widen. And the best thing is, teachers would be able stick to what they do best: teaching.

Tiffany Miller is vice president of government relations for Communities In Schools. Deborah Marcus is executive director of Communities In Schools of Los Angeles.

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