Program Strategies
Four suggestions to assist homeless education.
Transportation Strategies
- Coordinate with local housing authorities and placement agencies
to house students near their school of origin.
- Re-route school buses (including special education, magnet
school and other buses), and ensure that buses travel to shelters,
transitional living programs, and motels where homeless students
reside.
- Develop close ties among Local Educational Agency (LEA) homeless liaisons, school staff
and pupil transportation staff, and designate a district-level
point of contact to arrange and coordinate transportation.
- Provide passes for public transportation, including passes
for caretakers when necessary.
- Take advantage of transportation systems used by public assistance
agencies.
- Reimburse parents, guardians or unaccompanied youth for gas.
- Use approved van or taxi services.
- Use local funds for transportation.
Identification Strategies
- Coordinate with community services agencies, such as shelters,
soup kitchens, food banks, street outreach teams, drop-in centers,
welfare and housing agencies, public health departments, and faith-based
organizations.
- Provide outreach materials and posters where there is a frequent
influx of low-income families and youth in high-risk situations,
including motels and campgrounds.
- Develop relationships with truancy officials and/or other
attendance offices.
- Provide awareness activities for school staff (registrars,
secretaries, school counselors, school social workers, school
nurses, teachers, bus drivers, administrators, etc.)
- Make special efforts to identify preschool children, including
asking about the siblings of school-age children.
- Use enrollment and withdrawal forms to inquire about living
situations.
- Have students draw or write about where they live.
- Avoid using the word "homeless" in initial contacts with school
personnel, families, or youth.
Title I Strategies
- Establish a formula or other method to allocate Title I set-asides
for homeless children and youth.
- Use Title I funds (including set-aside funds) to support the
LEA homeless liaison position, and to meet basic needs of students
experiencing homelessness (clothing, supplies, health).
- Use Title I funds to provide tutoring and/or outreach services
to children and youth living in shelters, transitional living
programs, motels, and other temporary residencies.
- Pool Title I and McKinney-Vento funds to provide a comprehensive
program for homeless students, ensuring that specific needs
of children experiencing homelessness or high mobility are met.
- Ensure that the needs of children experiencing homelessness
are taken into account in the needs assessments that are required
for schoolwide programs.
- Make appropriate testing accommodations for children who are
homeless; for example, having opportunities to make up tests
if children are absent on testing day.
- Ensure that local liaisons are trained to collect achievement
data for all homeless students, and that district records systems
enable this data collection, while taking into account confidentially
issues.
Enrollment Strategies
- Train all school enrollment staff, secretaries, school counselors,
school social workers, and principals on the legal requirements
for enrollment.
- Review LEA policies and revise them, as necessary.
- Develop alternative caretaker forms, enrollment forms for
unaccompanied youth, and other forms to replace typical proof
of guardianship, again ensuring they do not create further barriers
or delay enrollment.
- Accept school records directly from families and youth.
- Establish immunization databases, school-based immunization
clinics, or mobile heath units.
- Be sensitive about smoothly integrating new students into
the classroom and school community.
