Schools Face Sharp Rise in Homeless Students

[MountainLaurel]

The economic plunge has generated a growing wave of children nationwide who are sleeping in shelters, motels, spare bedrooms or even the family van as their parents seek to keep them in school. Educators are scrambling to help, with extra tutoring, clothes, food and cab fare.

D.C. school officials have registered about 462 homeless students this school year, twice as many as the same time last year. Schools in Fairfax County, one of the country's most affluent areas, counted 1,314 homeless students early last month, up 20 percent from the same period last year. Prince George's, Montgomery, Loudoun and Arlington counties have also reported increases.

The children are often scared, stressed or embarrassed. Marcus, a teenage PlayStation pro, rushes inside the Alexandria shelter he calls home each afternoon. Even his closest high school friends don't know his family lives there, and he does not want classmates across the street to see him going in. He misses the house his parents rented for three years, before his father lost his job as a security guard. He misses the bedroom he and his brother shared, their video game system -- now in storage -- even their chores.

"Everybody's got their house," said Marcus, 16, whose family shares a room at Carpenter's Shelter, home to more than 25 children. "I'm left out in that."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/07/AR2009020702015.html?hpid=moreheadlines

[BlooInBloo]

1. :( Do schools still kick kids out that are homeless?

[donco6]

2. ?? When did they ever?

The McKinney Vento Act has been in place for quite some time.

[BlooInBloo]

6. When I was in high school there was a brouhaha about school policy...

requiring that kids have a mailing address in order to attend public school.

[donco6]

8. Interesting, and probably violates the state constitution.

Every state constitution I've ever known has some kind of clause guaranteeing a free appropriate public education. I'd bet someone was confused about the process for determination of which district the student lived in, which morphed into "you have to have a mailing address to come to school here."

In some states, you're not allowed to attend school outside your home district of residence without the resident district paying tuition to the attendance district. So, in those states, districts sometimes require proof of residence (a utility bill, paycheck with address, something). For someone living in a van, this doesn't work. McKinney Vento, passed in 1986-ish, requires that students who are classified as homeless MUST be allowed to go to school pretty much wherever they want, with transportation provided by the attending district - even if it's across district boundaries.

In Colorado, we are an open borders state. You can attend whatever district you want, as long as they have room for you, and you're in before October 1. So some of these rules are moot, except for the transportation piece, which does get expensive.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Not where I teach

They get to stay at their 'home' school and the district provides transportation for them as long as the shelter or place where they are staying is in our district.

[jwirr]

4. That makes hot lunches and breakfasts all the more important. When

I was in school our cooks knew who was likely to be hungry and made sure that their plates were piled high. I also know that some of the cooks would refuse to throw left overs away and instead took them to families she knew were hurting. Of course this was in a small community but I assume some of it could be done on a larger scale. I hate waste of any kind.

[donco6]

5. It's not allowed under the National School Lunch Program guidelines.

You can lose your federal funding, which, in our case, is well over 70% of the total funding.

[jwirr]

9. You mean the left overs. And yes it was not legal then but they did

it anyhow.

[MikeNearMcChord]

7. The Shame of a Nation, we can't spend money on these kids

but we sure as hell can spend it on the Billionaire Bankers, and funding two endless and pointless wars.:-(

[jazzjunkysue]

10. These kids are going to pay for all the wall st greed. This should be front page daily.

Our schools do not accept students who do not reside in the district. I don't think my school has a homeless shelter, so, we won't see this. But the city schools will. And of course, the first casualty of the stimulus was schools.

"Are there no workhouses? No prisons?"

Every time a TV pundit dismisses investment in our own schools, towns, roads and children as fruitless and pointless, and no one calls them on it, we forget that we own this country and must invest in our country.

Show me the home or property that doesn't require upkeep? Why are the capitalists allowed to get away with these statements? Think about it. Does this statement make sense? "Why should I have to invest in my roads, buildings and utilities?"

Because this is your country, you greedy, selfish moron!