April 2016

May 1, 2016

Melody Reitzer, 6, reads a book out loud for two of her siblings, Destiny Reitzer, 2, and Chance Davenport, 5, at her step father’s home in Salem on Wednesday, April 20, 2016. Melody, her mom and three siblings live at the Simonka Place women’s and children’s shelter in Keizer.

Chance Davenport, 5, and his sister Melody Reitzer, 6, wait in their mom’s car outside Melody’s school in Salem on Wednesday, April 20, 2016. The family of five lives at the Simonka Place women’s and children’s shelter in Keizer, ten miles from the school.

Melody Reitzer, 6, plays with a blown-up medical glove she has named “Handi” after the color of handicapped signs. She also acknowledged it is shaped like a hand. She, her mother and three siblings live in a room at the Simonka Place women’s and children’s shelter in Keizer. Photographed on Tuesday, April 19, 2016.

Carolyn Reitzer holds Nathan, her 8-month-old son, as her daughter Melody, 6, spins in their room at the Simonka Place women’s and children’s shelter in Keizer on Tuesday, April 19, 2016. Reitzer got her four children back from foster care about seven months ago after completing a drug rehabilitation treatment.

Carolyn Reitzer and three of her four children, Melody, 6, Destiny, 2, and Nathan, 8 months, leave their room at the Simonka Place women’s and children’s shelter in Keizer on Tuesday, April 19, 2016. The family shares a one-room apartment with a communal shower down the hall.

Just two days before our deadline for a story on how homelessness affects students, we found a family. Carolyn Reitzer and her four children let me into their lives, after several weeks of working with shelters to find a family with school-age children willing to let the paper interview and photograph them.

Carolyn and her children were more than welcoming. I was able to photograph them three different times in less than 36 hours. And while I, personally, would have loved to have more time with them, I was very happy with how comfortable the family was with me around. You can see the full story and photo gallery here.

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April was full of stories about students, including vandalism, science and prom season.

Doug Mack, a maintenance worker with the Salem-Keizer School District, uses a pressure washer to remove spray paint vandalism from the walls and sidewalks at McKay High School in Salem on Wednesday, April 6, 2016.

Duniway Middle School eighth-graders react to seeing a rocket designed and built by high schoolers launch during a visit by incoming freshmen at the Engineering and Aerospace Sciences Academy, part of McMinnville School District’s vocational and technical training program, at the Evergreen Space Museum in McMinnville on Thursday, April 21, 2016.

A trashcan is melted following a fire in a boy’s bathroom at West Salem High School on Friday, April 15, 2016. The fire is being investigated as arson. No one was injured.

South Salem High School students arrive for their prom at the Willamette Heritage Center in Salem on Saturday, April 30, 2016.