Homeless Children & Youth
Education for Homeless Children and Youth
The goal of the Education for Homeless Children and Youth program is to ensure homeless children and youth receive a free, appropriate, and successful public education on an equal basis with all other children in the district. Program objectives and activities are intended to remove and/or ease the barriers to enrollment and educational success for displaced students.
The main objectives of the program are to:
- Reduce the disruption in the educational lives of homeless
children and youth; - Increase awareness about the nature and extent of the
problems homeless children and youth have enrolling in
and gaining access to educational programs and services; - Explain legislation and policies already in place, which
overcome these barriers; - Build on legislation and polices already in place, which overcome these barriers; and
- Build the capacity of others to assist identifying, enrolling and ensuring the educational success of homeless children and youth.
McKinney Vento Homeless Assistance
The McKinney Vento Homeless Assistance Act is a federal law designed to assist students who are currently displaced from their homes. This program ensures displaced children and youth receive free, appropriate, and successful public education on an equal basis with the other students within the school district. This program is designed by objectives intended to remove and/or ease the barriers to enrollment and education success.
What does it mean to be a displaced student? These are children who lack a fixed, regular and adequate night time residence.
This includes the following:
- Children and youth who are sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing by economic hardship or other similar reasons. We refer to this as being doubled-up.
- Children living in emergency or transitional shelters.
- Children living in hotels or motels due to alternative adequate accommodations.
- Children living in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, and/or bus or train stations.
What are the main objectives of the McKinney Vento Program?
- Reduce disruption in the educational lives of displaced children.
- Increase awareness about the potential issues facing displaced children and youth.
- Collaborate with community resources aimed at alleviating the financial burden of displaced students and their families.
- Provide professional development training for teachers, administrators, and staff to assist in identifying, enrolling, and ensuring the educational success of displaced youth.
What services can be provided by the school district and coordinated by school social workers?
- Provide special transportation
- Work closely with the Bulloch County Schools Transportation Department to ensure bus transportation when educationally best for students who are displaced from their housing during the school year.
- Work to meet the clothing needs of these students. Our social workers collaborate with the Statesboro Service League to provide children with gently used clothing to wear to school.
- Work to meet the school supplies needs of these students. McKinney Vento students are provided with new book bags and school supplies upon request to alleviate the financial burden for displaced families
- Provide free breakfast and lunch through the district's School Nutrition Services.
- Help with enrollment documentation. Displaced families may have difficulty obtaining documentation that is necessary for enrollment in the school system (For example: birth certificates, shot records, residency verification, EED testing documentation, driver’s licenses, etc.). School social workers can work with families to obtain appropriate documentation to successfully enroll in school.
- Help refer students and families to community agencies that can further meet their needs.
- Provide assistance for graduation fees.
- Provide assistance with holiday wish lists (i.e. Christmas)
Who are the local community agencies that the school social workers collaborate with to help provide services? These are the local agencies with whom we collaborate.
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Backpack Buddies |
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| Statesboro Service League |