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For homeless students, the smallest trigger at school — playing games with a pencil, missing a class, talking back to a bully — could have a profound impact on their lives.

Those examples of misbehavior prompted school administrators to suspend several formerly homeless students who the Houston Landing interviewed as part of its investigation into Texas school districts illegally kicking out their most vulnerable children. 

The Landing found hundreds of districts have combined to suspend thousands of homeless students since 2019, when Texas legislators passed a law banning most out-of-school suspensions for children without shelter. In response to the Landing’s investigation, a Texas lawmaker who pushed for the 2019 bill said the Legislature should add more teeth to the law when it reconvenes next year, while the Texas Education Agency said it’s taking early steps toward possible state action.

To better understand the impact of the ongoing practice, the Landing interviewed four formerly homeless students in detail, asking them to describe how receiving suspensions affected them. They recounted stories of missed opportunities, detailed their feelings of abandonment and lamented the lack of understanding by school officials.

Though nearly all of the suspensions took place before the 2019 legislation became law, their experiences highlight the potentially life-changing stakes of barring homeless children from campus.

Brandon Williams, 25, attended Houston ISD’s Yates High School

By senior year, Brandon Williams had gotten used to the taunts about his sexuality and income status. His bullies would sneer homophobic and racial slurs at him, and tease him for wearing donated clothes. Sometimes, Williams would respond by swearing at them.

Administrators often suspended Williams for the outbursts, totaling more than a month’s worth of missed classes in his senior year alone, he estimated. At the time, Williams was bouncing between shelters, short-term rentals with his mom and brief stays with his dad, who had trouble understanding his son’s sexuality.

Williams believes the class time he missed cut him off from better opportunities after high school. Could he have set his sights on top colleges, he wondered. 

“If I didn’t miss as much school as I did for the simple things, like being bullied, I probably would have graduated with a 3.0 or 4.0,” Williams said. “Ultimately, school wasn’t hard. It wasn’t the math, it wasn’t the science, it wasn’t algebra, it wasn’t geometry. It wasn’t none of that. It was like, literally, the stuff that I was facing mixed with the administration.”

Instead, Williams attended Colorado Technical University online while surfing between his mom’s couch and friends’ places, ultimately dropping out before he got a degree.

Since then, Williams has had trouble holding down a job. He’s currently crashing at his sister’s apartment, because money is tight. The financial pressure has forced Williams to occasionally take dancing jobs and consider sex work, he said.

Reflecting back, Williams’ living circumstances as a teen — and his school’s responses to them — complicated his shot at academic success, he said.

“I wasn’t afforded the opportunity to be a student,” Williams said. “I was treated like a homeless kid.”

Waiola Jones, 24, attended Alvin ISD’s Manvel High School

Feeling rebellious one night at the beginning of her freshman year of high school, Waiola Jones stayed out for the night after a school football game. 

It was the last straw for Jones’ parents, who had grown tired of her disobedience. When Jones returned home the next day, they told her to leave — for good.

Jones began sleeping restlessly at a park in the neighborhood, often waking up late and missing morning classes. When she did go to school, Jones arrived tired, hungry and wearing the same clothes as days before.

At first, administrators issued her in-school-suspensions as a punishment for her tardiness. But when the issue persisted, they suspended her out of school for several days, Jones said.

“When they suspended me, I was always at Walmart,” Jones said. “I didn’t know what else to do, because I was young, I didn’t really have money, I didn’t have a job. So, it was like, ‘How am I going to fit in, especially being suspended?’ It’s really hard.”

Jones began shoplifting the food, blankets and clothes she needed to meet her basic needs. Eventually, while out of school due to a suspension, she got caught in the act.

Police officers brought Jones to juvenile detention, she said. She decided not to ask her parents to bail her out, afraid of the punishments she might face from them at home. Plus, having a roof over her head, three meals a day and access to education seemed like a decent calculus. She spent several months in detention, completing her freshman year there, she said.

The feelings of abandonment, run-in with the justice system and educational setbacks stayed with Jones for years. After completing high school, she enlisted in the Army. But she struggled with mental health challenges, including post-traumatic stress disorder, and ended her service early, she said.

Now, Jones is once again homeless, sleeping on the street or in abandoned buildings on the west side of Houston, still navigating depression. 

To this day, she still pushes memories of her high school years away.

“I didn’t know how cruel the world really is,” Jones said. “I just wasn’t ready.”

Prince Hayward, 28, attended Houston ISD’s Lamar High School

Prince Hayward began living on the streets in Houston when, at 16, the Brazoria County group home he was staying in got shut down, forcing him to fend for himself. 

“I was in survival mode, in essence, doing whatever I could to survive, stay warm,” Hayward said. “I used to pull on abandoned car doors, just to sleep in the car. I’d be out by 4 a.m.”

Eventually, he made his way to Houston’s Covenant House youth crisis shelter, attending school at nearby Lamar High School. But with just a few credits left before graduation, Hayward got suspended for fighting with another student. At the end of his three days off campus, school administrators told him not to come back, despite knowing he was living at a shelter, he said.

“It made the process harder, like I was back at square one,” Hayward said. “So, I’m an 18-year-old trying to get his diploma, I only had maybe three credits left, so it was like, ‘Work with me.’” 

Hayward eventually went back to high school and got his diploma. He now works to uplift young people facing circumstances like the ones he used to navigate. He mentors children with the Houston nonprofit Collective Action for Youth and, as an employee of the University of Houston’s Graduate College of Social Work, supports homeless young people living at Covenant House through a partnership between the two institutions.

A Bible verse, Psalm 27:10, sustained Hayward through the challenges.

“Whenever your father and mother give you up,” Hayward said, paraphrasing, “the Lord will take you in.”

Danielle Stephen, 20, attended Channelview ISD’s Channelview High School

Danielle Stephen was in fifth grade when she spent her first night outside, sleeping in front of a Channelview fire station after her adoptive mother kicked her out.

Stephen fought often with her adopted family, who withheld food and often forced Stephen to do her sister’s school work, leaving no time to complete her own, she said.

“I had a nice house, that kind of thing,” Stephen said. “But the support, the family aspect, I kind of felt enslaved in my own home.”

By eighth grade, Stephen ran away, living in Houston’s Montrose neighborhood. She got a job at a McDonald’s in the area, and her manager, who understood Stephen was homeless, allowed her to sleep a few hours each night in the back of the restaurant.

At school, however, some administrators seemed to respond with indifference to Stephen’s off-campus challenges, she said. School staff punished her several times for issues related to her homelessness. On separate occasions, they kicked her off campus for smelling bad and bringing the wrong type of backpack, Stephen said. (Channelview officials disputed Stephen’s account but declined to comment in detail, citing privacy laws.)

Once, during sophomore year, Stephen lost roughly $200 collected during a choir fundraiser when her possessions — including the fundraiser cash — got stolen on the street, she said. Despite her explanation, school administrators forced her to reimburse the total out of pocket and left an offense of “stealing” on her permanent record.

Stephen managed to graduate from high school and now attends Houston Christian University, where she studies psychology. She found housing at Sunrise Lofts, an apartment building in Houston’s Midtown neighborhood catered to young people who were previously in the foster care system. She also works there as a residential advisor.

Looking back, Stephen thinks many of her high school challenges stemmed from staff failing to recognize what she was going through off campus.

“The big issue is they see you and they’re not understanding the backstory behind the things that you’re doing,” Stephen said. “They’re not taking into perspective how much support and help that these students really do need.”

Asher Lehrer-Small covers education for the Landing and would love to hear your tips, questions and story ideas about Houston ISD. Reach him at asher@houstonlanding.org.

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