Finding ways to keep kids in school is another local challenge. Cathy Thomas is the principal at Guadalupe Regional Middle School, in Brownsville: "The struggles these kids go through are personal ones. They worry a lot. They worry about the fact that their parents have not been able to pay rent for three months and the landlady will kick them out. We have a girl whose father entered the country illegally, and he's now in prison. The mother doesn't drive, and one of her children is ill. This girl is worried all the time."