Federal

New Federal Rules on Homeless Students Spur Search for Solutions

By Linda Jacobson — October 16, 2002 4 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Under greater pressure from the federal government to identify and educate homeless children, a group of about 800 educators, advocates, and providers of services to the homeless gathered here from across the country to discuss ways to comply with the new requirements.

The 2001 reauthorization of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, which was passed as part of the “No Child Left Behind” Act, more clearly defines how schools should determine if a child is homeless. It also mandates that school districts each have a liaison responsible for making sure students living in homeless or transitional situations are enrolled in school and receiving additional services if needed.

“This is a major change,” Barbara Duffield, the education director of the Washington-based National Coalition for the Homeless, said here at the annual conference of the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth. “We’re no longer waiting for children to identify themselves.”

The four-day meeting, held Oct. 5-8, was the first gathering of the organization since the new federal requirements went into effect July 1. (“ESEA Includes New Requirements on Educating Homeless Students,” Aug. 7, 2002.)

But as many school district employees here noted, targeting children living in homeless situations can be difficult if their families don’t want to be identified. Experts estimate that about 900,000 school-age children in the United States are homeless.

Changing Perceptions

One other major obstacle is overcoming the perception that homelessness does not exist in certain communities, said Renee Mesnik, the liaison for the homeless in the 27,000-student Scottsdale, Ariz., district.

“What, we have homeless students in Scottsdale?” she said, repeating a response she said she commonly hears from teachers and administrators in the Phoenix suburb, known for its resorts and golf tournaments.

Meeting regularly with representatives of other human services agencies, such as housing and child protective services, is one effective way to identify students at risk of losing their homes, experts here said.

Using other terms to describe homelessness is also a way to identify students who qualify for services, which can include receiving transportation to the schools they were attending before they became homeless. Parents who would never admit to being homeless might agree that they are temporarily living with friends or family members.

“We need to be careful with the kinds of words we use,” said M. Estella Garza, the liaison for the 56,000-student San Antonio district in Texas.

She added that the district’s “residency questionnaire,” which all families are required to complete, has been useful in determining which students might be living in shelters, motels, or with friends.

‘Truly Accountable’

In addition to making states and schools more responsible for getting homeless children into school, the federal legislation requires those authorities to keep better track of how the children are performing academically.

Still, advocates for the homeless believe they have a lot of informing to do before state and local education officials understand the need to include homeless children in the mix of students who are tested. Schools tend to feel no urgency about making sure such children are present on testing days, advocates say, in part because of assumptions that the students will fare poorly and depress schools’ scores.

Under the revised legislation, schools must count the scores of youngsters who move from school to school within individual districts, as long as they were in those school systems for a full academic year. But they can still exclude the scores of children who do not meet that requirement, under a provision that Ms. Duffield called “a loophole.”

“Unless all children are included, a school district and school will not be truly accountable,” Diana Bowman, the director of the Greensboro, N.C.-based National Center for Homeless Education, said at the conference.

Barbara James, the president of the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth, added that policies are needed to ensure that districts comply with the intent of the law. She recommended giving schools that don’t test all children lower grades on their state report cards, or requiring districts to pay fines if they don’t test homeless children.

The McKinney-Vento Act does not require states or districts to track the achievement trends of homeless students in a separate category as they would students from racial or ethnic minorities or low-income families.

But advocates said that practice needs to be encouraged to help educators determine what educational gaps exist for homeless children.

Patricia A. Popp, the director of the Virginia Department of Education’s program for the homeless, said that to build awareness about homeless students, it’s helpful to talk about the needs they share with other highly mobile students, such as children of migrant workers, foster children, and recent immigrants. “We have to reshape the issue,” she said.

Events

Teaching Profession K-12 Essentials Forum New Insights Into the Teaching Profession
Join this free virtual event to get exclusive insights from Education Week's State of Teaching project.
Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and K-12 education jubs at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
Mathematics K-12 Essentials Forum Helping Students Succeed in Math

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Federal The U.S. Department of Energy Is Trying to Change a Title IX Rule. Why?
Proposals from the U.S. Department of Energy show buy-in from across the administration for the president's view of gender identity.
6 min read
Runners take off from the starting line for the 2A girls championship cross country race on Oct. 28, 2023, at the Norris Penrose Event Center in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Runners take off from the starting line for the 2A girls championship cross-country race on Oct. 28, 2023, at the Norris Penrose Event Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. The Trump administration is proposing a change to a school athletics rule under Title IX, but doing it through the U.S. Department of Energy rather than the Department of Education.
Parker Seibold/The Gazette via AP
Federal Trump Admin. Was Moving Ed. Dept. Programs Elsewhere Before a Court Intervened
The department had penned agreements with the U.S. departments of Labor and the Treasury to move programs, but was halted by court order.
8 min read
A Morehouse College student lines up before the school commencement, May 19, 2024, in Atlanta. The Education Department announced on July 18, 2024, that it is cancelling an additional $1.2 billion in student loans for borrowers who work in public service.
A Morehouse College student lines up before the school commencement on May 19, 2024, in Atlanta. The U.S. Department of Education had started to work with the U.S. Department of the Treasury on transferring its student loan portfolio, a new court filing shows.
Seth Wenig/AP
Federal Trump Admin. Adds Project 2025 Author to Education Department Staff
The appointment comes as Trump has already begun to embrace plans outlined in the controversial 900-page conservative policy agenda.
4 min read
A copy of Project 2025 is held during the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago.
A copy of Project 2025 is held during the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago. The Trump administration has added the author of the conservative policy document's chapter on education to the U.S. Department of Education's staff.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Federal Trump Admin. Pauses Ed. Dept. Layoffs After Judge's Order
The U.S. Department of Education is slowly complying with a federal court order to reinstate staff.
3 min read
Phil Rosenfelt, center, an attorney with the Office of the General Counsel at the Department of Education, is greeted by supporters after retrieving personal belongings from the Education Department building in Washington on March 24, 2025.
Phil Rosenfelt, center, an attorney with the office of general counsel at the U.S. Department of Education, is greeted by supporters after retrieving personal belongings from the Education Department building in Washington on March 24, 2025, the last day of work for hundreds of agency employees. The Trump administration has had to bump back the day it planned to stop paying laid-off staff.
Jose Luis Magana/AP