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Paving the Way to College for Students Experiencing Homelessness

Tuesday, August 18, 2022 | 2:00PM-3:00PM ET

Register: https://uncg.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_j6fpxXP_SUGrqADiGCLKZw
Description: In this interactive NCHE webinar, presenters will review important information about supports available to youth experiencing homelessness as they seek to attend college. Attendees can hope to gain a better understanding of:

Fee waiver options for college entrance exams and college application fees

The FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) process for students experiencing homelessness with their family/parent/guardian, and students experiencing homelessness on their own (unaccompanied homeless youth)

Options for seeking financial assistance beyond federal financial aid

Options for undocumented youth wishing to attend college

Attendees will have the opportunity to interact with presenters and fellow attendees through polls and Q&A/discussion periods.

Providing Wraparound Services Under ARP-HCY

Tuesday, August 23, 2022 | 2:00PM-3:00PM ET

Register: https://uncg.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SIh5TZC_SR6UR0td1pwwmQ
Description: In this webinar, presenters from the National Center for Homeless Education (NCHE), state educational agencies (SEAs), and local educational agencies (LEAs) explore creative approaches on how to provide wraparound services for homeless children and youth using American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief - Homeless Children and Youth (ARP-HCY) funding. Topics will include:

Methods used to determine how to utilize ARP-HCY funding (e.g., needs assessments, surveys, questionnaires)

Collaborations with community partners

Projects implemented

Impacts and results of the projects implemented (including anticipated results)

Plans for sustainability beyond ARP-HCY funding

UNDERSTANDING DOUBLED UP

Tuesday, August 30, 2022 | 2:00PM-2:45PM ET

Register: https://uncg.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_yi_N_pa6QJ-UxuvyQA0STA
Description: In this 45-minute NCHE webinar, presenters explore the issue of doubling-up. Doubled-up is the informal wording used to describe a concept included in the McKinney-Vento Act's definition of homeless. It refers to shared living arrangements, some of which may be considered homeless, while others may not be, depending on various factors. In this session, attendees will explore some of these factors in greater detail. Attendees also will have the opportunity to interact with presenters and fellow attendees through polls and Q&A/discussion periods.

MCKINNEY-VENTO SCHOOL SELECTION RIGHTS

Wednesday, September 7, 2022 | 2:00PM-3:00PM ET

McKinney-Vento basics and context

The McKinney-Vento Act's definition of school of origin

McKinney-Vento provisions related to determining the best interest of a student in terms of school selection (local school or school of origin)

The provision of school-of-origin transportation to currently homeless students and formerly homeless students who have become permanently housed

McKinney-Vento provisions related to dispute resolution, including disputes about school enrollment and selection

Attendees will have the opportunity to interact with presenters and fellow attendees through polls and Q&A/discussion periods.

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Group Training – National Center for Homeless Education

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CoP Needs Assessment Discussion Questions

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CoP Needs Assessment Discussion Questions

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Use this link and choose USE TEMPLATE in top right to make a copy for your team:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17E9MWMTqIfva19iGZKiR_DcyxSsKN2LmnHJPxdyX0iw/template/preview

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Day One - Principles of Community of Practice.

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Day One - Principles of Community of Practice.

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Mentimeter

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Good morning. Thank you all for being with us today. If as you come in you would type your name and your state entity and role in our chat. And also we're going to be posting a link to a Padlet that will have resources for our learning. We'd like you to access that as well. Again, good morning. Thank you for being with us today. If you would type your name, your state entity and role into the chat box and then access our Padlet link. Good morning. I see our participant numbers going up. Welcome all. Welcome. Again if you're just getting in, if you would add your name and your state entity and role to the chat. We're posting a link to a Padlet that has access for resources that you're going to need for our community of practice work. If you would access that link as well, that's being posted multiple times in the chat, so you just need to access it once.

I'm really excited. I see we have people from all over. You've got Pennsylvania, North Carolina represented, Colorado represented. Welcome, welcome. Kansas, South Carolina, welcome. Michigan, Maine. Welcome to our webinar. We're so glad you're here. For those of you who are just joining us, if you would add your name, your state entity and role into the chat. We're continuing to post a link to a Padlet that's going to have several of the resources that you'll need for our community of practice work. You'll need to access that link once as well. Got Virginia, Alabama, Ohio. Welcome. Just in case you're just getting in, again, if you'll put your name, state entity and role into the chat box and be sure to access that Padlet link.

I see we're at 10:04. If the waiting room has steadied, we can move to our next slide. Those of you who are just now joining us again, if you'll add your name, state, role and entity in the chat box and be sure to access that Padlet. But we're excited. We are going to go ahead and get started. I'll take a moment to introduce myself and then my co-facilitating partner will introduce herself and we'll jump right into our learning. Good morning again, my name is Kailanya Brailey. I am a Senior Education Equity Specialist with the Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium, and I work primarily with CEE, which is the Center for Education Equity. And I am also a former middle school principal from South Carolina. Jessica.
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
Good morning, everyone. I'm so happy to be here with you this morning. I am Jessica Webster. I am a Senior Family Engagement Specialist for CAFE, which is our family engagement team. I too am a former middle school principal. We were just talking about the excitement of seeing our students and teachers go back to schools. It's a great time for us to be gathering and celebrating that return to school together.
Kailanya Brailey:
Absolutely. Well, again, welcome to the, Are All the Children Well, this is a two day community of practice and this webinar is the final installment of the four part Are All the Children Well homeless education and family engagement webinar series. Next slide. We'd first like to be sure that we share with you our vision statement for our work here at MAEC. Our vision statement reflects who we are and what we stand for here at MAEC. We are a champion of innovation, collaboration and equity. Next slide.
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
As you can see, we have a very ambitious agenda for today's session. We really believe this is a topic we could continue to explore for months, years, many, many sessions, but we're going to do our best to spend the next two days and provide everyone with very quality community of practice. Today we're going to start after our welcome and introductions, really framing what a community of practice is. And then we're going to launch right into our partnership with the National Center for Homeless Education and our presenter for the day who's going to talk to us and give us an overview about homeless education and the supports that our communities can provide to our students. We will wrap up the day with the question and answer session and then our closing activities. Next slide please.

Tomorrow I think, I don't know if we have the day two agenda up there. Our day two agenda though, is when we're really going to get into that community of practice, we're going to break up into smaller groups and really look at our own practices. There we go. And really be able to really assess what we're doing. We have some takeaways and some action steps that we could take into the future. Thank you. Next slide. For today's webinar, we will be using the chat box to engage with our participants. We recommend that you click on the chat icon on the bottom or the top bar of your toolbar screen, but please do not use the raise hand function for today.

There will be questions and answers throughout the community of practice. And for today, we would appreciate if you would put your questions in the chat or in the what I wonder section of the Padlet. We would like everyone to be using the Padlet during this time. Next slide. For live captions, we do have live captionings enabled for today. They should show up on your screen by default. If you do not wish to use live captioning, you may use your Zoom controls at the bottom of your Zoom window to select the live transcript or close caption button, and then hide subtitles. To view them again you will go through and to turn them back on by looking at the button that says live transcript or close caption. Next slide please.
Kailanya Brailey:
I would like to give you all some background information about who we are and what we do, which will help us understand why we strive to connect and support all communities. MAEC was founded in 1992 as an education nonprofit dedicated to increasing access to a high quality education for culturally diverse linguistically and economically diverse learners. MAEC envisions a day when all students have equitable opportunities to learn and achieve at high levels. Our mission is to promote excellence and equity in education to achieve social justice. We believe that all students deserve to feel welcomed, respected and safe at school, and provided with the opportunities to thrive.

This webinar series is brought to you through both CEE and CAFE. CEE, the Center for Education Equity, operates in 15 states and territories through support from the Department of Education. We are the statewide family engagement center for Pennsylvania and Maryland. That's going to be CAFE our Collaborative Action for Family Engagement. CAFE is a project of MAEC and they are helping to build sustainable infrastructure to support healthy family, student, and community engagement. If you look at this image, this is an overview of the region covered by the region one Equity Assistance Center, the Center for Education Equity. And as you see, we reach all the way from Maine down to Kentucky. And we also include Puerto Rico and the Virgin islands.

And CAFE again is the statewide family engagement center for Maryland and Pennsylvania. I also have the pleasure of introducing our phenomenal webinar support team. We have Ian Rashleigh McNally. He is an evaluation intern and he's providing operations and tech support. We have Nikevia Thomas, a senior specialist. She is providing chat box support and she's the virtual event planner. We have Lily Klam, our family engagement intern, and she's providing social media support. We have Camilla Lagos. She is providing Spanish interpretation. And also we have Emilia Guevara, she's also providing Spanish interpretation.

Here are our day one objectives. For today we intend to develop an understanding of the McKinney-Vento Act and also identify policies, practices, and systems of support available to students and families experiencing homelessness. Tomorrow when we come back, we're going to audit current policies and practices used by your schools, districts, or organization to support students and families experiencing homelessness. And we're going to work to create an action plan to support the needs of students and families experiencing homelessness. We do have some key terms provided for you in the interest of time, because there are three slides worth of key terms, including defining the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act and showing how the McKinney-Vento Act defines homelessness.

But those definitions, those terms are included in the Padlet resource. So please be sure that you have access to that Padlet link so that you have all of those key terms. Next slide and next slide and then next slide. Thank you
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
All right. Let's get started. For our first activity we are going to ask you to access the Mentimeter, which we're going to put into the chat box for you. What we would like you to do is we are going to review three distinct definitions or descriptions of a community of practice. And as we talk through these, we would like you to take a few moments in the Mentimeter, and please record the words from each definition or description that stand out to you as important for a community of practice. Again, we're placing that link right in the chat for you. Our first definition is that a community of practice are groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis.

Our second description is that this is different from a team or a work group in that membership is voluntary. The goals of the community are less specific and more changeable. The results are not easily discerned or measured, and the community exists as long as its members participate. Our core principles of community of practice are that we have participation. Everyone in the community has a voice and those can be heard and people feel that they can contribute to the practice. Differences are explored and there is a commitment to practice to uncover what the work is, why we do it, how it's done and how to have reciprocity with others who are also wanting to learn. So please take a minute. And in the Mentimeter, please indicate the words that stood out to you in those three descriptions of a community of practice.

And then as you can see our Mentimeter, our word cloud is growing. And remember on a word cloud, the biggest words are the words that are very popular. It looks like community, reciprocity, voluntary, ongoing, changeable, participation, all bigger words on the list. That there's a commitment. Deeper knowledge. Share voices on there absolutely. Passion's growing.
Speaker 3:
This meeting is being recorded.
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
Changeable is getting a little bigger there, right? Sylvia putting the comments advocacy. Very good point. Okay. Well, if you still have some words, feel free to put them in and we'll continue to collect those as we move forward. But we are ready to launch with our speaker for today who we're extremely excited to have with us. Today I am honored to introduce you to Tisha Blythe. Tisha is program specialist at the National Center for Homeless Education. Prior to joining NCHE she worked for 15 years at a school district, gaining experience as a school counselor for a title I school. A district administrator for homeless and foster care education, a district crisis team leader, and a member of the North Carolina Homeless Education Program leadership team. Tisha, thank you so much for joining us today. We look forward to learning with you.
Yatisha Blythe:
Good morning, and thank you Jessica for that warm introduction. I am excited to be here today in support of the great work that you guys are doing at MAEC. I'm also delighted to be able to have the opportunity to speak to attendees about the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act. Ian, if you're ready for me, I'm ready to get started. Thank you. You can go to the next slide. Today we're going to spend some time looking at the McKinney-Vento Act. This will be a brief overview, but it will give you a great amount of information about the McKinney-Vento Act and the provisions for children and youth who experiencing homelessness.

But before we get into the content, I just want to share with you for a few minutes about NCHE, the National Center for Homeless Education. We actually are the technical assistance and information center for the US Department of Education's homeless education program. And if you haven't done so, or if you're not familiar with us, we do have a comprehensive website. And so spend some time if you have not, and just take a look at some of the resources that we have available, there's a wealth of information on our website. Information about the law, there's specific topics. There's information for all types of folks. So for educators, for community, people, for parents, for youth, just a great bit of information for everyone.

We also have a toll free helpline number as well as a helpline email inbox. And so if you ever have questions related to the McKinney-Vento law meeting the needs of homeless children in youth, or how to serve families, please feel free to contact us. We do have products that are available for print and download, as well as products that are available for purchase. And then if you're interested in becoming a part of our list serve, the link right there in the middle that says products and list serve. You can use that link to sign up for our list serve. If you're a social media person, then please follow us on Twitter or Facebook.

They gave me a wonderful introduction again, Jessica. I am Yatisha Blythe. I go by Tisha and I am a program specialist with the National Center for Homeless Education. My email address is also listed there, if after today's presentation you have questions or feedback you'd like to share. Next slide. During our time together today, we are going to look at a brief overview of homelessness and also the McKinney-Vento definition of homelessness. We'll also talk about the provision of immediate enrollment for students experiencing homelessness, as well as what school selection looks like. I will just state here that sometimes people have a misconception when it comes to the school selection process for students experiencing homelessness.

It's not a school shopping process. There are specific schools that students experiencing homelessness are entitled to attend. We'll also talk about the dispute resolution process when there's a disagreement between parents, guardians or unaccompanied youth and schools, about which school students will enroll in. And then for the second half of our presentation, we'll look at the provision of transportation, some school success items. We'll talk about public preschool, higher education, and then we'll talk briefly about the funding resources that are available to schools, to support students experiencing homelessness. Next slide.

Okay. Before we dive into the content, let's take a moment to set up some context. Homeless children and youth enrollment over time has risen, but around the 2018-19 school year there was a decline. If we look at the data that's on our screen first, we can see the flow of homeless student enrollment from school year 2004, five, all the way to school year 2019, 20. And so as I said, the enrollment has grown, but we did see a decline in school year 18-19. And to put things into context, in the 2017-18 school year, that was the year in the US where we experience a lot of major hurricanes, five major hurricanes to be exact. Two of those were category four or five. Those hurricanes did impact the enrollment for homeless children and youth. And then after we recovered from the hurricanes, then the pandemic hit.

But the largest drop that we did see in enrollment was the year after Hurricane Katrina. We can see also too from our chart that's on the screen or our graphic that's on the screen, that on average, the number of homeless students has increased and it's increased by about 5% each school year. Next slide. More data that I want to share with you guys to set the context, is that states often look at identification indicators. And so for those of you that are familiar with NCHE and our resources, we do have a lot of data resources. We do have state profiles on our website. And so states can use the information from identification indicators to assess what's going on with their state.

These indicators that are on the screens, states can use these to get a sense of how their school districts are doing when it comes to identifying children and youth experiencing homelessness. And so these indicators such as the average annual change, the three year annual change, the percent of students, and then also the percent of free and reduced lunch qualified students, these indicators let states also know which ones of their school districts that may need some TA or may need some monitoring. Next slide.

Let's about homelessness. Homelessness not in the context of adults that we see, but homelessness in the context of students. I know for some of us, we know all too well about the barriers that are created by homelessness, but most often a lot of us think about adults more so than we think about children. But some of those adults you might see out in the community, some of those adults that you might see panhandling, they are parents too. I can tell you though that with the data that is collected nationwide, the majority of students experiencing homelessness are those who are doubled up with parents or guardians. But be that as it may, homelessness does create barriers for students.

These are the kids who are in school that have a lot of addresses. They're moving around a lot. They're having to change schools a lot. These are the students who are often hungry or tired or stressed out. They may be lacking health assessments, birth certificates, any other documents that may be needed for enrollment. And these are often the children who lack reliable transportation, or they may not have a parent or guardian. They could be a young person, a youth who's unaccompanied and out experiencing things on their own and figuring out life and trying to attend school. These are often the children who are disconnected from those positive social ties as well.

Also with homelessness, there is an impact on education. It affects education. Think about someone who's housing insecure. These are not only the kids who might be lacking school supplies, but they also may lack a place to study, somewhere to even sit down and work on homework or study or read. Oftentimes in schools, these are the children who have experienced a great deal of trauma, and sometimes trauma can be misdiagnosed as a special education need or children in youth indeed may have some special education needs that are undiagnosed. We're talking about the children who are at high risk of being, are potentially dropping out of school. They're often chronically absent, and these are also our children who oftentimes perform poorly on their school assessments as well as get lower grades in schools.

I think this may be our last piece of data. And I'm not going to go through every single one of these categories. As we all know there are subpopulations of children and youth who are at greater risk of experiencing homelessness. But I want us all to just look in our far left corner on the screen where it says that 346% youth with less than a high school diploma, or GED, have a 340% risk of being homeless or experiencing homelessness. And the first time that I saw this data, this data is provided by Chapin Hall. This is actually from their 2017 Voices of Youth Count. I know that was a few years ago, maybe about four, five years ago, but this data is still powerful. It still resonates. So no matter if you're working in the field of education, or if you're working in the community as an advocate, or if you're working out of school or before school programs, this is some data that probably gives you the chills a little bit.

So just wanted to share this with you. Like I said, I know it's a little bit older, but it's still some very powerful data. It helps us think about our work and our advocacy and the subpopulations of youth that we should be champion around and rallying for to help them be successful and have access to school success. Next slide. And you can go past this one to Ian. Thank you so much. Now we're going to look at the McKinney-Vento Act. If you did not know the federal legislation for the education of homeless children and youth is under the McKinney-Vento Act. And so this is the piece of the law that establishes the definition of homeless that is used in public schools. And the way that the McKinney-Vento Act is designed, it is designed to address some of those unique barriers that are experienced by students who are in homeless situations.

So some of those barriers we talked about that impact their education and affects their education. McKinney-Vento does focus on the areas of school identification, school enrollment, school stability, and success of homeless children and youth. And it targets children and youth who are in grades pre-K through high school, through the completion of high school. Under the McKinney-Vento Act there's also a requirement that every school district appoints a local homeless education liaison. I do believe that this PowerPoint will be provided to all attendees after today. If you're interested in learning more information about McKinney-Vento Act, this link at the bottom of this slide will take you to the non-regulatory guidance published by the US Department of Education.

And just to let you guys know, any other links that you see on the slides, they are active links. So again, when you get this PowerPoint after today, you can access any of the links for further information that you would like to read about at a later time. Next slide. Under the McKinney-Vento Act, the definition of homeless means that a child or youth is lacking a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence. And when we get to our next side, we're going to look at those three words just a little bit deeper. But children and youth who are lacking a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residents are those who are eligible for McKinney-Vento services. So these are living situations that look like being doubled up, sharing the housing of others due to loss of housing, economic hardship or a similar reason.

These are also children who may be living in hotels or motels or abandoned trailer parks in campgrounds. They may be in a domestic violence shelter or homeless shelter or transitional shelter. These are also those that are unsheltered. They may be sleeping in their car. They may be sleeping in an abandoned building or some public place that's not designed for dwelling or a place that's not ordinarily used for regular sleeping accommodations. And then also migratory children that may be in any of the aforementioned living situations. Next slide. And please know that that list we just looked at, that is not an exhaustive list, but those are some of the most common living arrangements. So as I stated, we're going to look at those words, fixed, regular and adequate.

And at NCHE we get asked about these words a lot, because there's not necessarily a definition for them in the law, but if you look at the Miriam Webster dictionary, fixed means stationary. It means permanent. It means it's not going to change. Regular means it's predictable, it's routine, it's consistent. And then adequate means lawfully and reasonably sufficient. And so different communities have different regulations as to what's considered standard. We get into that thing of looking at what substandard housing conditions looks like. And then also under adequate, it means sufficient for meeting the physical and psychological needs typically met in a home environment. The way that we frame fixed regular and adequate, when you're looking at a housing situation is, can the student go to the same place, fixed every night, regular to sleep in a safe in sufficient space that's adequate. Okay? Next slide.

Eligibility determinations for McKinney-Vento programs, I just mentioned in a couple of slides back that the McKinney-Vento Act requires public schools to have a liaison who's responsible for overseeing the McKinney-Vento program. They're responsible for ensuring that students are identified and receive services. Having the job as the liaison, that requires a great deal of collaboration. Collaboration with school staff, possibly even district staff, but also coordinating with other agencies. So that means community agencies, shelter partners, after school program partners, before school program partners, any community based agencies or organizations that may be serving families experiencing homelessness.

And when it comes down to making those eligibility determinations, the liaison of course is considering all circumstances. But the thing to remember is that there's no cookie cutter recipe with eligibility, determinations, everything is done on a case by case basis. And so when liaisons call and ask us questions about eligibility determinations, or need assistance helping them process eligibility determinations, then we always say rule of thumb, when in doubt, just look at the legislative wording, compare the living situation to the legislative wording that we just looked at, which is that fixed, regular and adequate. And the thing about fixed, regular and adequate situation, doesn't have to meet all three things, any one of those things can be missing when it comes to the eligibility determination.

And we also have a brief that's related to determinate eligibility. If we have any education staff or liaisons or even state coordinators on the webinar today, then we also have that brief that is very helpful for eligibility determinations. Next slide. Now I'm going to give you guys a chance to participate in activity. We're going to have an interactive exercise. I want you guys to use the chat to respond to this question. This is an eligibility scenario. Mr. Bradford lost his job in August. The family moved in with his parents last week. So based upon the information that you've heard so far, would you qualify the Bradford children for McKinney-Vento services? Would you say yes? Would you say no? Or would you think more information is needed?

I'm seeing some fast folks. Yes. Need more information. Absolutely. More information. You guys are super smart. And now I appreciate the quick responses. Absolutely in this case we would definitely need more information. And based off of what we've talked about so far, we can see that this family is definitely appearing to be in a doubled up living situation, but we don't quite know why. Other than the fact that Mr. Bradford lost his job, we don't know if this is temporary or we don't know if they've had a conversation to make this a permanent living arrangement. So great job and thanks for your participation. Next slide.

Under the definition of homeless students, there's also a definition for unaccompanied homeless youth. And this is a definition that trips people up a lot. To be considered unaccompanied homeless youth, two criteria have to be met. The first one is that the students living arrangement must meet the definition of homeless. So those living situations of being in a shelter, being doubled up, living somewhere unsheltered. And then also the student must be considered unaccompanied, and that's defined as not being in the physical custody of a parent or guardian. Accompanied would mean you're living with your parent or your guardian. Unaccompanied means you're not in the physical custody of a parent or guardian. We also have a great eligibility flow chart for unaccompanied homeless youth on our website. But this is one, I will say that trips people up a lot.

So with this, when they do have to meet the definition of a homeless student and not be in the custody of their parent or guardian. And later on when we talk about that transition to higher education, we'll talk about some supports and resources and things that are in place for unaccompanied youth who are transitioning to higher education. Next slide. All right. We've got one more. Here's a youth scenario. Sam is enrolled in Grover High School, but he's seeking enrollment at Asbury High School. He says he's been staying with a friend's family for a few days. is Sam eligible for McKinney-Vento, just based off of this information? Is that a yes, no, or I need more information?

Okay. We've gotten some great responses. And you guys are correct, more information is needed. We do know that Sam is saying he's staying with a friend's family. He's been there for a few days, but we don't quite know all the circumstances in his living situation. It could be a planned arrangement. It could be his parents are on vacation and he's just staying there for a week. And while he's there he's decided that he wants to go to school there. He may try to think that he could go to school there. We don't know that. But there's not enough details listed. We definitely do need more information to determine if Sam is experiencing homelessness and if he's an unaccompanied youth. Okay. Next slide.

Now I just want us to pause for a few moments. There will be some time for Q&A at the very end, but there's also a few little breaks in between just to give you guys some time to ask any questions. I don't see anything in the chat box, and I know that the raise hand feature has been disabled. If there are no questions at this time, we will move forward. Now we're going to talk about school selection and enrollment. Thanks for your comment. I think we may have one more or a few more in the presentation. When it comes to enrollment, homeless students do have the right to be immediately enrolled after they've been identified under the McKinney-Vento Act. And that word enrolled or enrollment includes attending classes and participating fully in school activities.

So not just we've done the affidavit or the application, but we've been sitting in the office for two days because we don't have classes, but it means attending classes and participating fully in school activities. And so again, enrollment should be immediate. Even if this is a student who is lacking health assessments or medical records, if they're lacking transcripts, if they've missed an enrollment or application deadline, or even if this is a student who has a history of being absent or chronically absent, or they have outstanding fees for lunch or a device, whatever, those things do not matter, those things would be seen as barriers. And so just know that homeless students do have the right to be immediately enrolled and they should be attending classes and participating fully.

You can advance. Thank you. Also when it comes to enrollment, LEAs are charged with developing and reviewing and revising policies that remove barriers to the enrollment and retention of homeless students. Those outstanding fines, those outstanding fees, if they're chronically absent, LEAs are charged with looking at their policies and determining ways that they can revise those policies, those practices, so that they're not inflicting barriers on children and youth who are experiencing homelessness. And those local liaisons who have lots of responsibility, they are responsible for helping parents and guardians and unaccompanied youth, if they are missing some of those things. If they don't have immunizations or if they're missing a health assessment, or if they're missing some type of screening, they are the ones who are responsible for helping parents and unaccompanied youth and guardians get access to those things.

The one thing that I do want to share with you guys is that McKinney-Vento is a federal education law. It's not just a law that's specific to certain states. It is absolutely a federal law that supersedes any state or local law or policy. Next slide. Now let's talk about school selection. Earlier when I was sharing with you that we talk about enrollment in school selection. Sometimes people think that under the McKinney-Vento Act, there are provisions there that it means that parents or guardians or unaccompanied youth can school shop. They can go to school wherever they want because they like the school over here better or this school is better at athletics or this school has more technology or this school is in a so called better neighborhood. And that's not the case. And please don't think that all people experience a homelessness think like that, but sometimes in dispute resolution, these are things that come out.

When it comes to school selection, students can attend either their local attendance zone school or their school of origin. The local attendance zone school is a school in the area where they're living. It's any public school that students who are living in the same attendance area are eligible to attend. That's the local attendance zone school. Then there's the school of origin. And this is the school in which the student was last enrolled when they were permanently housed, the school they last attended. And then also with the reauthorization of ESSA in 2015, this included preschool programs. So not all preschool programs, public preschool programs. And then the feeder pattern schools at the next grade level have also been included in that school of origin definition.

And so let's look at those feeder pattern schools just to make sure that's clear. It used to be years prior, if you were a student who just completed, let's say you completed fifth grade last school year, and that was the terminal grade for that elementary school, you were going to sixth grade in a new building, it used to be before that the only option for school attendance or school selection was that local attendance school. But with the reauthorization of ESSA, that has changed and the feeder pattern schools are now included in the school of origin definition. Our little graphic on the screen, we've got school A and we've got school B. Brian is a fifth grader enrolled in his school of origin, school A, which is a K through five school.

Students at school A, feed into school B in sixth grade. Therefore Brian's school of origin includes school A and school B, which is the designated receiving school. And so I'm sure you guys know that with a lot of schools starting this week in the next coming weeks or after Labor Day, we're getting a lot of phone calls about this right here. Sometimes that summer break folks forget this little one piece of the McKinney-Vento law. Just know that this is a part of that school of origin definition and students can attend that feeder pattern school. Next slide.

Some more information about the school of origin, is that it's presumed that remaining in the school of origin is in the student's best interest. And oftentimes that is the case, but there are times or will be times when it might be contrary to the request of the parent or the guardian or the unaccompanied youth. In situations like this, when it comes down to determining what school selection is, we have to look at student centered factors. You're looking at the impact of mobility on their achievement and their education. If there's something related to their health or their safety, and also McKinney-Vento encourages or suggests that you give priority to the request of the parent or guardian or unaccompanied youth.

And one thing that the Department of ED encourages is that you also look at siblings. They do encourage sibling school placement when McKinney-Vento eligibility determinations in school selection are made. Those words best interests that we talked about it is presumed that for students to remain in the school of origin is in their best interest. And so students can continue attending the school of origin for the duration of the homeless experience. The entire time that they are homeless. They can even attend until the end of the school year in which they will move into permanent housing. If we have a student that is eligible for services now, but let's say they become housed at Christmas time, they're still eligible to receive services until the end of the school year.

And also when they become homeless in between school years. So if there is a family who experienced homelessness in March of this year and they were under the McKinney-Vento program until the end of the school year, well, they very well may still be homeless when they start school this week or next week or in the next few weeks that are coming up. And so if they're still in that same homeless living situation, then they would still be eligible for services. It's just that a new eligibility determination would be needed, but they can still be eligible and still attend the school of origin. Next slide.

Let's talk about homeless liaisons. Homeless liaisons have a lot of responsibilities under the McKinney-Vento Act. They are responsible for ensuring that homeless children, youth are identified by school personnel, as well as through coordination with other agencies. They're also responsible for ensuring that they're identified, enrolled and have full and equal opportunity to succeed in school. And so that means making sure that they're connected to those educational services that they may need. This includes those head start programs and early intervention programs. This includes services under IDEA. This also includes doing referrals for families, for homeless children and youth to healthcare services, dental services, mental health services or any other housing referrals.

And also liaisons bear the responsibility of ensuring that they inform parents or youth about educational opportunities that are available to them. Next slide. Another responsibility that liaisons have is to ensure that awareness materials are disseminated, not just in schools, but also in the community. So those may be awareness posters, those may be pamphlets that are at churches, child welfare agencies, human services offices, just making sure there's public notice of what the educational rights are of students who are in homeless living situations. And then also a requirement is to make sure that enrollment disputes are handled accordingly. Excuse me, guys. I'm so sorry. Allergies are messing up today.

They are also responsible for informing parents and youth about transportation services. And those are those transportation services to the school of origin. Another part of the liaison responsibility is to train school staff. So train school staff, train staff in the community, make sure that everyone is aware of the provisions of McKinney-Vento and the supports that are available for students experiencing homelessness. Next slide. Actually, I'm sorry Ian, can you go back. Last bullet on this slide, I mentioned that we would talk about unaccompanied homeless youth and about supports available to them. And we'll talk a little bit later about FAFSA, but when unaccompanied youth are in school and they're seeking to go off to higher education, it's important for liaisons to inform those students of supports and services that are available to them.

It's important for them to know that they qualify for independent status as it comes to them completing a FAFSA application. And it's a very simple process. Liaisons can provide them with the verification letter that just states that they were identified under the McKinney-Vento Act, provide the date for the school year, sign in and send it off to the institution of higher education. And it helps them receive the maximum amount of financial aid that they possibly can when they qualify as an independent student. There's one other thing. Also we have a link at the bottom for our homeless liaison toolkit. That is another great resource. There's a lot of forms and a lot of information and a lot of different tools that are very helpful. So if we do have any folks in the webinar today who are new homeless liaisons, that is a resource that will be very helpful for you.

Okay. Thank you, Ian. We can move on. We've got one more scenario. Mariyah is a junior in high school. Her family recently lost housing and they doubled up with relatives in a school district that is 20 miles away from Mariyah's current school. How would you decide whether Mariyah should stay in her school of origin or transfer to the local school? Based off of the things that we know thus far, what's some information that might help you decide if Mariyah should stay in her school of origin or transfer to the local school? She's a junior in high school. So 11th grade, or are you saying, what grade she's going to, that be helpful? Depends on what grade she's in. Okay. Anything else? How feasible is transportation? How long of a car ride?

Transportation ends up being something that comes up a lot. We're going to talk more about that when we get into the transportation section, but I will tell you that transportation alone cannot be a reason to decide if a student stays in their school of origin or if they attend the local school. Very good. We've got parents requests, permanent living situation. All of this feedback you guys are providing is very good. What's in her best interests. How long will the family be staying there? Very good. Graduation Time of school year. These are great things. These are all things that liaisons look into when they're making those determinations about eligibility in school selection. And so again, the request of the youth, the parent and guardian are taken into account.

They do have a voice and they can for voice what their request is, but there are also factors that the liaisons look at. These are great. Okay. Let's move on Ian. Now let's talk about disputes. Disputes are when there is disagreement between the school and the parent, the guardian, or the unaccompanied youth about the student's eligibility, about their enrollment or about the school selection. And so each state has their own specific dispute resolution process. But the requirement is that when there's a dispute between the school, the parent, the guardian, or the youth, they must be provided with a written explanation of why this student is ineligible for McKinney-Vento services or why they cannot enroll and attend a specific school.

They have to be provided the written decision. That includes, how do you appeal this decision? Their right to appeal. And also it needs to be written in a language they can understand, and in a format that's clear and easily can be understood. It doesn't need to be anything confusing long, drawn out, just a clear, concise form that is written that lets them know why the decision was made. And with that appeal process, the liaisons are also responsible for making sure that parents and the youth are aware of what that appeal process looks like. The timeframe for it. Just very clear and concise instructions around the right to appeal. It is that homeless liaison who carries out that dispute resolution process and they are required to carry it out as quickly as possible. Next slide.

During the dispute resolution process, I will tell you all that students do have the right to be immediately enrolled in the school in which they're requesting. Even if it's not the correct school or there's reason why, or there's reasons why the student may not really be eligible for McKinney-Vento until a decision is reached, until that resolution is resolved, then the students do have the right to be immediately enrolled in the school in which they're requesting. And they must receive all services that they would be eligible for under McKinney-Vento until a final decision is made. We also have a brief on the dispute resolution process.

And just some things that we encourage our liaisons to do to help them mitigate or avoid disputes, is to make sure they're being sensitive and respectful. Using trauma informed actions, trauma inform language, making sure they're calm and explaining things correctly and explaining things with reason. And then also making sure, again, those parents are notified in writing, have that written decision of why McKinney-Vento eligibility was denied and what the steps are to appeal that decision. You don't want to retraumatize families, you don't want to retraumatize parents or youth. Many of them have been through so much trauma prior to coming into the school and trying to get their kids into school.

We just really caution our liaisons and our school staff about being very careful and selective with their wording and things that they say and ensuring that they communicate clearly and respectfully with parents and youth, and just really get down to it, find out what they really want and if there's any way to accomplish this. And if it can't be accomplished, but then the context of McKinney-Vento, if they're not eligible for McKinney-Vento, then how can you help them outside of McKinney-Vento as well. Okay. Next slide.

Now let's talk about transportation. Just like the misconception of school shopping, there's also a misconception about transportation. Sometimes people think that McKinney-Vento was just designed so they can get a kid on the bus. I'm not saying that this is what parents often think, but sometimes school staff think this. Sometimes school staff see this as a way of getting a student transportation. Under McKinney-Vento, LEAs are required to provide school of origin transportation, but only when it is requested by the parent, by the guardian, by the local liaison on behalf of unaccompanied homeless youth. And so that transportation, if it's requested it should be available to them through the end of the school year.

Again, when we talked about those kids who might get permanently housed during the middle of the school year, right before the school year ends, they still must be served as homeless students until the end of the year. And they can still be provided transportation to that school of origin if they've become permanently housed in a different district. Okay? Transportation must be comparable to what's provided to other students. If there's other students who getting on a bus, the bus is coming to pick them up, same things should be provided to other students. Districts are responsible for deciding what mode of transportation that they use. A lot of times we get asked, does the law say they have to be in the bus? Does the law say they have to be in a contracted van service or this, that, or this, that?

The law does not mention those things. Again, those are district decisions that they can make, but a requirement is that the transportation is comparable to what other students are receiving. So mileage, the distance or the time spent being transported, or the expenses for transportation cannot be reasons to deny a student McKinney-Vento eligibility. If it's in the student's best interest to remain in the school of origin and the parent or the unaccompanied youth requests that transportation, then the LEA, the local education agency, the school district, they are obligated to provide it and arrange it for students. Okay? Next slide. When it comes to those school districts who are sharing the student, then those districts can split the cost and the responsibility.

And if they cannot come up with an agreement, then they can split the cost 50, 50. So if you've got a kid who's going to school, their school of origin is in one county, but they're just over the county line in the neighboring county, the more than likely those two school districts will have to coordinate together and figure out a transportation route that works for them. And then if there's disagreement about how much this district's going to spend, or that district's going to spend, then they can simply split the cost of 50, 50. That excess cost of transportation, meaning that excess amount of distance that the school bus might take versus the regular routes that they already use, that excess cost of transportation to the school of origin.

If a school or school district I should say is receiving the McKinney-Vento sub grant, they can use those funds. Title one, Part A funds can be used to cover that. And then some districts are using their American Rescue Plan, their ARP homeless children and youth funds to go for that excess cost of transportation. And this allows students to attend class and participate fully in their school activities. Okay. Next slide. Transportation should be arranged in a timely manner. So that means it should not take a month for a student experiencing homelessness to be assigned to whatever their transportation is. If it's a bus, if it's a van, if it's a taxi, if it's subway tokens, whatever that mode of transportation is, it should not take a long amount of time to provide that student with transportation.

Because if they're not in school because of transportation, that's a barrier. And McKinney-Vento, the goal of it is to remove barriers. If they're out of school, they're not attending only because of transportation, that is a true barrier. And so we encourage school districts to set up interim forms of transportation into that more permanent form of transportation can be arranged. And when it comes to transportation, it's really just best for liaisons to bring everybody to the table. So the liaison, the transportation director, if they're special education student, those staff members and their form of transportation service. And if it's multiple school districts involved in that transportation route, then just bringing everybody together.

Some districts do provide parents with a form of reimbursement. If they're short staffed, if it's difficult to get a transportation arrangement worked out, if it has to do with how early in the morning or how late in the evening, the child or youth would get home. Districts, some of them do ask parents if they're willing to transport, if they can. And they devise a parent contract with that parent and offer them reimbursement for the mileage for transporting their children to school. And actually I'm watching our time. So Ian, let's move past this question slide, and let's go into school success.

To help children and youth be successful in school, we got to feed them. Right? These are our kids who are often hungry. I don't know about you guys, but it's hard for me to concentrate and think and learn if I'm hungry in my stomach is growling. With homeless children and youth, we do know that these are our children and youth who are most likely eligible for free and reduced lunch services. They are categorically eligible for those free meals as long as it's a school district that is participating in the US Department of Agricultural's free and reduced lunch program, then they are eligible for those free meals. One of the things that liaison's most often do is provide their school nutrition director with a list of names of their students and their date of eligibility, and the liaison or the shelter director's name or whatever that process is.

But again, free and reduced lunch are typically available for our children and youth who are experiencing homelessness. To help them be successful in school, we touched on this a few moments ago or a few slides back, but trauma inform practices are so important, being sensitive to the needs of not just the children and youth, but also their parents. That T word, trauma, comes up again. There's been so many traumatic experiences that could have happened before the homeless experience. Then you add on the homeless experience to it. And so we just caution all of our education staff and our community partners as well. But you want to use those trauma informed practices when you're interacting with students and parents.

Another part of school success is ensuring, and these are the liaisons, ensuring that they're connected to those district level supports that are there. So not just the free meals, but also any kind of academic assistance, tutoring, summer programs, clothing closet, food pantry, and also connecting them to those extracurricular activities. Another piece of school success is ensuring that children and youth are connected to their special education services. So if they have a current IEP, have a 504 Plan, or if these are students who may need to be assessed or tested, just ensuring that they're connected to those resources.

And then also referring them to community agencies for those additional wraparound services, ensuring that parents, if they need a form for a housing referral, for an agency that's helping them with housing, ensuring that those things are done. It takes more than just services that can be provided during the school day for children and you to be successful. So ensuring that they need all services that are possibly available to them. That is a great way for liaison, school staff and community partners and community agencies to work together to ensure that children and youth have everything that they need. A requirement for school counselors under the McKinney-Vento Act is working with the homeless children and youth who need full or partial credit for courses that they successfully completed.

Districts are required under the McKinney-Vento Act to have clear procedures in place to award children and youth with full or partial credit for some work that they've completed in a previous district. Okay? So awarding credit could be evaluating their mastery of the courses and then awarding the credit accordingly, or providing them with some form of credit recovery, offering them distance learning, or even just a consultation with the prior school to get an evaluation of the work that was completed. Okay. Public preschool is part of the McKinney-Vento Act. When ESSA was reauthorized, that public school wording was added to the school of origin definition. There's also a requirement to make sure that our young children are being identified and being served.

ESSA has increased an emphasis on identifying these homeless preschool age children. And so a requirement is to make sure that they have access to receiving all the services that they're eligible for. That starts with those head start and early start programs, the early intervention under IDEA, Part C, as well as any other programs that are administered by a school district or LEA, that preschool children may be available for. Next slide. And so our public preschool programs, again, this is targeting those children who are zero to five. Public preschools includes any publicly funded preschool program that the LEA is the financial or fiscal agent for. Okay? I just wanted to clarify that and we're going to move on in interest of time.

Okay. Now let's talk about higher education. We talked a few moments ago about FAFSA, but all homeless children and youth should receive information and individualized counseling regarding their college and career readiness, their school selection, applying for college, paying for college, financial aid and on campus supports. And so that is something that school counselors most often help with. Some school social workers may help with it too, but most often those school counselors help with that. You can move to the next slide, Ian. Under McKinney-Vento, school counselors are charged with assisting all students experiencing homelessness with their college and career preparation.

And so again, those independent student verification forms, the liaison can provide those for students when they're doing the FAFSA. They also can do subsequent year verifications when they feel like they can make that verification, but FAFSA is making some changes to that, and I believe that is one of the changes that will be coming forward with the 2024 school year I believe. There's fee waivers that are available. So ensuring that homeless children and youth know about these fee waivers, whether they be through their counselor, most often it is, but there's AP testing waivers, ACT, SAT and free college week and other waivers that are available to students.

I just wanted to mention briefly, I know that Maryland is not the only state. I believe Pennsylvania has these waivers as well, but I encourage you to check your state resources, whether you're in the education arena, or if you're working in the community, there are resources that are out there. They vary by state, but there are resources that are available to support students who are experiencing homelessness. I do know that Maryland does have that unaccompanied homeless youth and foster care tuition waiver. There are other states that also offer this resource as well as some additional resources. Okay. And we're getting down to the end guys. We are almost done.

Some sources of funding that helps pay for needs that school districts can provide to homeless children and youth. There's the McKinney-Vento subgrant. That is an application that school districts must complete with their state office of homeless education. It's a competitive subgrant, and this is supplemental funding that can help them provide services to children and youth experiencing homelessness. Most school districts do have a title one set aside, and we're all probably familiar with what title one funding is. Title one works hand in hand with McKinney-Vento. There's a title one set aside that is typically made available to support the homeless education program and LEAs. There's also the ESSER funding that was made available due to the pandemic, as well as the American Rescue Plan funding that school districts receive that's available.

Districts and states are coming up with creative ways to use that funding. This is the first time that unprecedented amount of funding has been available. The 800 million debt was designated for the education of homeless children and youth. Then there's also state and local education funds. There's all types of local grants, opportunities in such communities, and then community partners and other foundations can offer funding. They might want to sponsor specific program, they may want to do a clothing closet or food pantry or supplies for unaccompanied homeless youth, you name it. And some of you out there are probably doing some of this great work. All right.

Now we're down to our resources that are available. Again, you guys will be provided with this PowerPoint presentation after today. And so all the links in the PowerPoint are active. The homeless liaison toolkit is a great resource. Our determining eligibility flow chart. There's also an entire page of resources dedicated to unaccompanied homeless youth, as well as guiding the selection discussion on school selection. And then I believe we've got a list or to the links for our webinars and videos. We do have live webinars that we do monthly. If you're a person who likes to be in a live webinar or training, we have those. Then we also have those self-paced resources. These are our pre-recorded videos and webinars. And you can use link to go into those. We've got topics like determining eligibility, school selection, doubled-up, unaccompanied youth, and then also paving the way to college, that higher education webinar.

We also have links to the federal resources. So the full text of the McKinney-Vento Act, the legislative excerpt, which is also in the key terms that have been placed in Padlet for you guys. And then the non-regulatory guidance. These links are also in the key terms list that's in Padlet. Okay. Again, after today, if you have additional questions, you can contact our helpline at any time. There's a group of us who do work the helpline. We'll be available to answer your phone call. And then also there is a helpline email inbox if you would like to send us an email. Okay. That is our content. I'm not sure how much time we have left over for Q&A, but I do think we do have a few minutes for it.
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
Tisha, you are right on track and thank you so much. I think everyone, if they didn't know already, now understands why we're so honored and privileged to have you with us here today.
Yatisha Blythe:
Thank you. I appreciate that.
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
I'm going to start, Kailanya and I will take turns asking some questions, but I'm going to start with an easy one that doesn't take an awful lot of time. And that is, one of our attendees said that they just learned about our training today. We're so glad you were able to join us at the last minute like that. But you were wondering how you can access the previous session. We did an overview session and we did one specific on LGBTQ plus students and their vulnerabilities. And as soon as that information is set to go, it will be located on our website under the webinar section. The second question that we had though, I think provides a little bit more support and that is, could you expand on information for children who are homeless and coming to us who may be missing their IEP?

We're being told they're eligible, but we have no background information on them. What would be the best way for schools to make sure that they are providing that support? Especially if the setting that they were in previously is not available in their new setting? I'm thinking probably students who may have been attending an outside school, not their local school.
Yatisha Blythe:
Special education, there are requirements that are more urgent and more pressing. Not saying that McKinney-Vento is not, but if you know that a student is experiencing homelessness and they do have an IEP, and let's say it's time for a reeval, I would say, definitely connect with whoever is in leadership of your special education department. If you're in a school district, you probably can access who to find easily. If you are a community partner and you're serving a student, if you're working with them on tutoring or some other wraparound resource, I'd encourage you to reach out to your district liaison, whomever that person is at the school district. And they should know what avenues you need to take to get you connected to the special education department.

Because when it's time for those referrals and renewals, there's a quick timeline. I think it's like a 90 day timeline and I don't want to misspeak. I know that's what it's like in North Carolina, but that 90 day timeline might be more of a federal thing than just a state specific thing, but I don't want to overstate. But definitely yes, getting in contact with your liaison if you're in the community so they can help you navigate folks in the district. And then if you're in a school system, definitely reaching out to your special education department.
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
Thank you so much for that information.
Kailanya Brailey:
Yes. Our next question, it's actually two part, but it's for work with cyber schools. The first part asks, for cyber schools, they do not, or aren't unable to participate in the national school lunch program, and they're trying to get creative with this, but participants would love to know if there are other creative ways that they could be working with families to meet this need due to cyber schools non-participation in the national school lunch program. The second part of that question, the participant would love to know how to advocate for change at a more systemic level based upon virtual school options growing all over the country. So an area of advocacy, but also how to help with the school lunch program issue.
Yatisha Blythe:
My suggestion for the school lunch thing is maybe reaching out to one of those community partners who offer it. I'm not sure how it looks in your specific state. I live in North Carolina, so I'm thinking about how we do have some of those community programs that can come in and provide that school lunch, that free school lunch through the US Department of Agriculture. I don't know the requirements though, but maybe reach out to someone like a community partner and see if that's something that they're able to provide. I don't know if it's the boys and girls club or which program it is, or maybe start with United Way and they may be able to tell you. What was the second question about advocacy for getting things to change systemic?
Kailanya Brailey:
At the more systemic level as it relates to virtual school options.
Yatisha Blythe:
I'm not really sure about that. Can you read that question again? I want to make sure I'm answering it-
Kailanya Brailey:
Absolutely. It says would love to know how we can advocate for change at a more systemic level based upon virtual school options growing all over the country.
Yatisha Blythe:
That's probably something that's decided at school board level in terms of options for in-person learning, virtual learning. If you're part of a public school, maybe that's something that you do by advocating with your school board member and seeing if that's a conversation you can have with them. And that could be something that they're working on. That sounds like a school board decision versus a school decision. That sounds like a higher administrative. So that may be something that has to go through the superintendent's office or the school board.
Kailanya Brailey:
Great. Thank you. One last question, the participant says, I wonder more about how the McKinney-Vento Homeless Act impacts preschool children and homelessness as a community schools coordinator at an early childhood center, serving children ages two to five.
Yatisha Blythe:
My brain is still thinking on that last question. And so the person who asks that question, data, data, data. If you're advocating, you have access to any data that will help your client. The next question you said was on early start preschool kids.
Kailanya Brailey:
Yes. Just wondering more about how the McKinney-Vento Homeless Act impacts preschool children and homelessness. And this is from a community school's coordinator and an early childhood center serving children ages two to five.
Yatisha Blythe:
Okay. I actually think we have a brief on our web page about that age group, as well as that collaboration between the different programs required to meet the needs of them. But I feel like the earlier you start, the earlier the intervention, the more successful students can be. And so getting them to access early, not only to special education services, but other wraparound services that they need. I know we've all heard a lot about trauma. We've all heard a lot about ACEs, so I think with getting a handle on those things earlier, of course their early intervention is better, but we do have some more specific resources on our website that can speak to that if you're looking for some information around that.

We've also got some data points in our data page, there's state profiles with state specific information about all of our homeless children you still have view. If you live in Florida and you're looking to find out more information, you can click on those state profile links on our page and find out more information.
Kailanya Brailey:
Great. Thank you, Tisha.
Yatisha Blythe:
You're welcome. Is that the last one?
Kailanya Brailey:
I think that was our final question.
Yatisha Blythe:
All right. Well, thank you so much for your time. I look forward to seeing those of you that join us tomorrow when we talk about our action plans.
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
To that note, just a quick recap that tomorrow we're going to dive in right away and we will be breaking up into smaller groups and spending some time going through an audit process so that you have an opportunity to look at your own practices and have some time to debrief and come up with some next steps for your programs in order to continuously improve. And so with that, we just want to say, thank you. And we look forward to spending some time again with you tomorrow.
Kailanya Brailey:
Have a wonderful rest of your day.

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Are ALL the Children Well? A Community of Practice Part One - MAEC, Inc.

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In the final installment of MAEC's four-part homeless education webinar series, we teamed with the National Center for Homeless Education (NCHE) for a two-day community of practice. Participants audited their policies and practices related to students experiencing homelessness and developed individualized action plans based on their findings.

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Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to day two.
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
Good morning.
Kailanya Brailey:
As you come in, if you will be sure to access the Padlet. You're going to answer the question, what is one thing you learned from yesterday? We're so glad that you all have joined us again for day two of our community of practice work. If you would access the Padlet and answer the question, what is one thing you learned from yesterday? That Padlet link is located in the chat.

I see that we've got some people still coming in. As you enter, if you would access that Padlet link from the chat and answer, what is one thing you learned from yesterday? Welcome back, we're so glad you all are here.

We are going to give at least one more minute. I see some people still coming into the waiting room. We want to give you an opportunity to access the Padlet and answer, what is one thing you learned from yesterday? Those of you who just joined us, welcome back to day two of our community practice work for Are ALL the Children Well. If you'd access that Padlet, what is one thing you learned from yesterday? We'll take about another minute. That Padlet link is located in the chat for you.

All right, it is 10:03. In the interest of time and because we're so excited to get to work, we are going to go ahead and get started. Again, if you just came in, the Padlet link is in the chat for you to answer one thing you learned from yesterday, but we're going to go ahead and start on day two of Are ALL the Children Well? A Community of Practice.

Today is a bittersweet day for us. We started this work back in May and today is the last day. It is the final part of our four-part student homelessness education and family engagement webinar series, and so our work is concluding on this webinar, but we are excited for all we have learned and all that we're going to try to do as the school year goes on. Again, welcome, thank you all so much for being with us. We are excited for what you're going to produce today.

Again, I'm Kailanya Brailey, I'm a senior education equity specialist with the Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium. I'm happy to pass it on to my co-facilitator, Jessica.
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
Thank you, Kailanya. I'm Jessica Webster, and I echo all of Klan's sentiments. We're excited to be here with you today and put some of our learning into action, which, as those of us in the education field know, that's extremely important for us, to take the learning and then how do we apply it. That's what today is all about.

Real quickly, I'd just like to go over a little recap of what we did yesterday, for anyone who was joining us just for today that didn't join us yesterday. Yesterday, we had the pleasure of learning about the McKinney-Vento Act and the detailed roles and responsibilities of schools and providers to assist our students who are experiencing homelessness. You can find resources from yesterday in our Padlet for your reference and for future use.

Today, in our day two agenda, on the next slide please, we are going to be taking all that learning and putting it into action with our community of practice, which we will explain momentarily. We'll begin by learning about the National Center for Homeless Educations Needs Assessment, and then we'll spend most of our time evaluating our own practices in the spirit of continuous improvement.

Next slide please.

Just a few quick reminders before we get started, on our webinar etiquette. Please use the chat box to engage with other participants. We recommend that you click on the chat icon on the bottom or top toolbar of your screen. There will be time for a recap and any questions and answers towards the end of the webinar, so please put any questions you want to the panelists during the Q&A section, please put them in our Padlet like we did yesterday, under the What I Wonder section of the Padlet. We'll continuously share that link out with you, but we encourage you to keep that open on a separate tab during our training today.

Next slide, please.

Again, live captioning is automatically turned on for participants. If you do not wish to have live captioning on, you'll need to follow the directions on the screen. Please go to the webinar controls at the bottom of your Zoom window, select live transcript or closed caption button, and then select hide subtitles. Again, if you'd like to turn them on later, you just reverse the process by going to live transcript or closed caption and putting them back on.

Next slide, please.
Kailanya Brailey:
We know that we shared this information with you yesterday, but it is incredibly important to us that we continue to frame why we do the work that we do and who we are. This webinar is brought to you by both CEE and CAFE. CEE, our Center for Education Equity operates in 15 states and territories through support from the Department of Education. CEE is one of four regional equity assistant centers funded by the Department of Education under Title IV for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. CAFE, our Collaborative Action for Family Engagement, is a project of MAEC and a statewide family engagement center for Maryland and Pennsylvania. CAFE helps build sustainable infrastructure to support healthy family, student and community engagement. CAFE serves all educators from state agencies to school districts, to school staff and early childcare providers and families to promote high impact culturally-responsive family engagement.

Next slide, please.

Let's take a look at our day two objectives. For our work today, we intend to audit current policies and practices used by your school, district or organization to support students and families experiencing homelessness, and you will create an action plan to support the needs of students and families experiencing homelessness. Very excited about our work today.

Next slide, please.

Our key terms are located on that Padlet of resources that you have. We're not going to read all of those, but we do encourage you to refer to the key terms on the Padlet for definitions related to the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, and particularly how that act defines homelessness.

Next slide.
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
Okay. Yesterday, we took a moment to evaluate some descriptions and definitions of a community of practice. We completed a word cloud, where we asked all of you to share with us the words that really stood out for you from each of those definitions. As you can see, we wanted to just ground ourselves back in those norms for our community as we move forward today. Some of the words that really stood out to everyone are the biggest ones on the screen, words like commitment, reciprocity, I love that word, community, that it's voluntary, we're all here voluntary today, that it's ongoing, that there's participation by everyone, that we can change the direction the community of practice goes in based on the needs of the community, that there's sharing and passion in all that we do. We'd like you to take those words with you and the thoughts from our word cloud as we move forward.

Let's dive in. Next slide, please.

Those of you that were with us yesterday know how much you learned from Tisha yesterday, and we're going to start by grounding ourselves in that work. Tisha's joining us again today, yay. Just a quick reminder that she is a program specialist at the National Center for Homeless Education. Before that, she's served in education as a school counselor, an administrator. She comes to us with a wealth of information and a deep, deep wealth of information when it comes to supporting students with homeless education. She's going to kick us off with a description and an understanding of the needs assessment that we are going to be using in our breakout rooms. Tisha, thanks for joining us for day two.
Yatisha Blythe:
Good morning, thank you so much. I'm glad to be here with everyone again today. As Jessica just stated today for our content, we are going to look at assessing the needs of homeless children and youth. Before we get started, we will set some context for some of our attendees who maybe didn't have a chance to attend on yesterday, or just to give us a little refresher about homeless children and youth.

We can advance to the next slide.

Before we get into our content, I do want to talk to you just briefly about the National Center for Homeless Education, NCHE. We operate the US Department of Education's Technical Assistance and Information Center for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth program. If you're not familiar with us, please take some time to check out our website. We have a comprehensive website with a wealth of information and there's something on there for everyone. There's something on there for youth, there's something on there for education stakeholders, there's something on there for community stakeholders and for parents as well. We do have a help line, you can call our toll free number, or you can send us an email to our homeless@serve email inbox.

There's also a great deal of resources that are available, a lot of products, such as posters, pamphlets, brochures, briefs, there's some that are free for print and download. Then there's also some resources that we have on our site, some products that are available for purchase that can be shipped to you. If you're interested in joining our Listserv, you can do that as well from our website, from the link on the screen. Then if you're a social media person, please follow us on Twitter or on Facebook.

Again, I am YaTisha and I'm a program specialist with the National Center for Homeless Education. If you find that after our time today you have some direct questions that you'd like to send to me, please feel free to send those to my email address that's listed at the bottom of the slide. Thank you to those of you who sent feedback and comments and had questions yesterday. I enjoyed reading those. It was my pleasure to speak with you individually via email. I do appreciate that.

Let's set up our session for today. In our time today, we're going to get an understanding of the needs of homeless children and youth, again, just a brief little refresher from some of the things that we talked about on yesterday, and then we'll also look at what the McKinney-Vento Act mandates for local education agencies, also known as school districts. Then we'll look at what the purpose is of a needs assessment, why are they important, why should you conduct a needs assessment?

Then we'll have the second half of our time to have some group learning and discussion. You guys will be placed into groups that you'll be assigned to. I think our facilitators did their best to assign folks by region, but we'll get some more instruction on that just a little bit later. Then there'll be some time for group debrief, where you guys will just share some of the things that came out during your group time and learning together. We'll talk about some next steps and some planning. Then we'll look at some essential NCHE resources that will be helpful to all of you beyond today and for sustainability as you go into your different arenas of work, whether it be in education or whether it be in the community. Then, if time permits, we'll have a final Q&A.

Okay. To set some context, yesterday, we did talk briefly about the needs of homeless children and youth. We all know that homelessness definitely impacts education. With homelessness or the homeless experience, it can cause some barriers for students. These barriers can actually impede their learning, because with homeless children and youth, we know that these are children who are housing insecure and they may not have access to things that their housed peers do. The most basic areas of needs for homeless students are their basic needs, their health needs and their educational needs. These children and youth may be lacking not just a home, but they may not have access to food and nutrition, they may not have clothing, shoes. They may be missing hygiene items, school supplies, backpacks, even a book to read at home for when they want to enjoy reading.

These are also the children and youth who experience some trauma. Some of them had traumatic experiences prior to the homeless experience, but the homeless experience within itself has some trauma infused in it. There's that experience of losing your home and losing all of your belongings and worrying about where you will stay. Even some homeless children and youth report they worry about their parents during the day while they're at school and are my parents safe throughout the day while I'm at school. They also have medical needs and dental needs.

Then on the education side, these are the children who are coming in to register for school and they may be missing birth certificates. They may be missing a health assessment or their immunization records. Just to let everyone know, I think I stated this yesterday, but for those who may not be aware or did not get a chance to attend, students experiencing homelessness cannot be denied enrollment if they're missing a birth certificate or immunization records or a health assessment.

Also, as an educational need, they may be lacking a space to do their homework. They may have poor attendance. If the parents are trying to work out a permanent housing solution, it may require the children to miss school sometimes. Their attendance may be irregular, they may even be chronically absent. Then also, particularly for our high school students, they may be lacking some credit accrual for any coursework that they have satisfactorily completed in their previous school. Also, we do know that trauma can be misdiagnosed as a special education need, but truly, some children and youth experiencing homelessness do have some undiagnosed special education needs as well.

Next slide.

All right. Just as a refresher, or to inform those who are not aware, we're going to look at the McKinney-Vento definition of homeless one more time. Homeless children and youth who are lacking a fixed regular inadequate nighttime residence are considered to be children who are eligible for the McKinney-Vento homeless education services. These are those children and youth living in housing situations where they may be doubled up because they are now having to share housing with someone else, it could be a family member, could be a neighbor, could be a friend, could be anyone. They've lost their housing, they're sharing housing due to a loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason.

These are also children and youth who may be living in motels, hotels, campgrounds, and trailer parks, domestic violence shelters, transitional living shelters, emergency shelters, and may even be abandoned in hospitals by their parents, or they could be unsheltered, living in a public or private place that's not designed for dwelling or not typically designed for sleeping accommodations for human beings. Then also we know that families who may be living in their cars or sleeping in parks or abandoned buildings, bus or train stations. Then also migratory children who live in any of the above situations.

Under the federal McKinney-Vento Act, there are some requirements for LEAs. Again, LEAs are local education agencies or school districts. LEAs are required to ensure that homeless children and youth are identified by their school personnel and also through coordination and collaboration with other agencies. I just want to highlight, that has a lot to do with why we're here today, because we're going to talk about needs assessments and we're also going to look at the importance and the significance of inter-agency collaboration, especially with community partners and education, or LEAs.

LEAs are also required to enroll children and youth, enroll them immediately if they're experiencing homelessness, and ensure that they have full and equal opportunity to succeed in school, as well as ensure that whatever educational services they are eligible for, those are provided to them. This also applies to children who are in public preschool programs, that zero to five age group. Then it's also a mandate or a requirement that parents, guardians and unaccompanied youth are informed of the educational rights of children under McKinney-Vento. Then any related education opportunities or support services that are available to them, they are required to be informed of those.

Next slide.

There's also a requirement for public notice. I love the makeup of our attendees that have been with us yesterday and today. We've got a great mix of folks from the education side, as well as the community side. This too helps raise awareness. That public notice of educational rights and ensuring that it's disseminated, these are ways for the public to be aware of the rights of children and youth who are experiencing homelessness. They're McKinney-Vento rights. Some school districts have posters, print media, they have a high social media presence. These are all ways to ensure there's awareness around the McKinney-Vento education rights for homeless children and youth.

Another requirement is that when a dispute occurs, and yesterday we did talk about disputes, disputes are when there's a disagreement about enrollment, identification, school selection, between a parent or guardian or the unaccompanied youth and the school, there is a requirement that those disputes or disagreements are handled according to the law, but also expedited as quickly as possible.

There's also a requirement to inform parents, guardians and unaccompanied youth about transportation services. We also talked yesterday about when it comes to transportation, transportation cannot be a reason to deny a student their McKinney-Vento homeless education rights. It can't be, "We're not going to identify you because we're short staffed in transportation. We don't have enough drivers," or, "That distance is a little longer than some of our other routes." Again, transportation cannot be a reason to deny enrollment. Then also, LEAs are required to look at their policies, their procedures and their practices to make sure our barriers are removed to the enrollment and retention for homeless children and youth, as well as ensuring that those policies and practices do foster equitable outcomes for students.

All right. Now, we're going to talk briefly about the needs assessment. Again, why are needs assessment important? Why should you conduct a needs assessment? A needs assessment is very essential for any LEA, for any school, for any program, for any agency to look at and understand the uniqueness of the needs of their staff, their students, whomever is being served. Since we're talking about homeless children and youth, the needs assessment is essential into looking at what the unique needs are of the homeless children and youth that are being served.

It helps to locate areas where improvement is needed. It also highlights what the strengths are of the LEA or the school or the program or the agency. It's essential to identifying what resources are available and then giving you some actionable steps to prioritize activities that will allow you to invest time where those gaps are, and then you can look at what the outcomes are so that you can see how reorganizing and prioritizing these activities can make the biggest difference. It also creates a process for reviewing any data that you have or any data that you have access to, as well as documents. Then it also communicates the needs by giving that evidence and that authority for you to stand behind.

Our school-based needs assessment, I believe it's available in Padlet where the other resources are. What we're going to ... The next one, there you go. Thank you. With the school-based needs assessment, and I know you're hearing the word school-based, you might be thinking, "Okay, that doesn't apply to community," but it actually does. We're going to look at that inter-agency collaboration as well. This needs assessment has two sections, the first section is the Welcoming School Culture and then the Support for School Success. Under that second section, for school success, there's work there for educators as well as community partners.

Next slide.

In section one, that Welcoming School Culture, some guiding questions for you to think about as you're working through the needs assessment. Think about how does your school feel? What does your school feel like? As a former district level administrator, walking into schools, you can feel the culture and the climate as soon as you walk into the building. What does your school feel like? That applies to agencies, that applies to a program within the school or a program within the agency. What does it feel like? Do registrars or frontline staff or social workers, do they discreetly discuss living situation with families or with you? Are staff and students and parents made aware of the McKinney-Vento definition, the educational rights? Those posters that we just talked about, social media resources, or are there pamphlets or brochures?

The second section is Support for School Success. Some guiding questions for that section are what are some of the protocols in place for McKinney-Vento eligibility and identification and enrollment? Again, if they're experiencing homelessness, they need to be identified and enrolled immediately. Is there a designated homeless liaison for your school? There should be. If there's not, there should be. There should also be a designated district level person for schools. What are the resources and support for your homeless students?

Next slide.

Some additional guiding questions for this section are, do school staff members routinely participate in McKinney-Vento trainers? Are they getting trained? Are they only getting that beginning of the year refresher or are they getting some training throughout the school year to help them support the needs of homeless children and youth? Are instructional and behavioral approaches reflecting an understanding of the needs of homeless students, so being sensitive, those trauma-informed practices? What does the school leadership look like? Are there policies and procedures in place that are being updated regularly that ensure fair and equitable outcomes for students?

Okay. We will have 30 minutes of time for some group learning and discussion, and then there'll be about 20 minutes for debrief. I'm going to go into what our instructions are for the needs assessment. If you are from the education side, and again, everyone is assigned to a team and I do believe our MAEC facilitators tried to assign everyone as close as possible by region, so you'll be assigned to a team to complete the needs assessment, if you're on the education side, you're going to look at both sections of the needs assessment. You'll just go through and answer those questions. Then during our debrief, we'll talk about what are some of the strengths that you see in how your school is serving homeless children and youth, talk about some of the gaps, talk about some of the challenges, talk about the next steps, and then the benefits of conducting an annual needs assessment to improve services.

I will tell you before we advance to the next slide, for our breakouts, you guys, again, will be assigned to a room. I encourage you to assign someone to be a speaker for your debrief. Hopefully, all groups will feel comfortable enough to share some of the things that you worked on, but when we do come back to our main room for the debrief, I will just call on your group number or room number and ask your speaker just to share with us some of the questions from the debrief. We'll probably go through each question and I'll just call on different groups. You guys can use the reaction feature of raising your hand, we are going to allow you to use that today, and then you'll be able to unmute yourself and share what your group talked about from their breakout.

There's one more slide. Our folks in the community arena, if you're in an out-of-school program or a nonprofit agency, please feel free to read the entire needs assessment, but you'll mostly be working in section two under that subsection that says Collaboration With Out-of-School and Nonprofit Programs. You'll work on answering those questions. The way the needs assessment is set up, you guys in both arenas should be able to have some good active conversation and learning around how you can collaborate together, because that inter-agency collaboration is so essential to the success of homeless children and youth.

Okay, so at this time I am going to turn it over to our MAEC facilitators. Do you have any further instructions you want to share with attendees before we move into our breakout rooms?
Kailanya Brailey:
Tisha, thank you so much again. Again, just a wealth of information. Words would fail me if I tried to capture my appreciation for all that you've given to this community of practice work, but just thank you for all of that information.
Yatisha Blythe:
Absolutely.
Kailanya Brailey:
We are excited to move into the work portion of our time today. If you look on the screen, you will see that we have assigned you by region, with the exception of Pearson Virtual Schools, you all will be together. We may make necessary adjustments as needed, but we are going to start with putting you in groups by region and facilitators are going to be joining various rooms to provide assistance and to serve as start partners. However, if you do have any questions while you're working or if you need a facilitator to report to your breakout room, we are asking that you use the hand raise feature at that time and someone will be with you as soon as possible. If you have any issues with that, just alert us in the chat that you need someone to report to your breakout room and someone will report to you.

For your work in the breakout rooms, the needs assessment worksheet is located in the Padlet resources under Handouts. You are going to need to make a copy for your own use, so there's going to be an option for you to click the blue Use Template button in the top right corner of your screen. You're going to need to click that in order to make a copy for your own use. There's a needs assessment and there are discussion questions for you to complete once you've done that assessment with your group. Again, if you run into any issues or if you have any questions or if you need a facilitator to report to you, we're asking that at this time you will have access to the hand raise feature, but if you have any issues with that, just alert us in the chat and someone will report to you.

Jessica, do you have anything to add before we move to our rooms?
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
I don't think so. I think we're just excited to get you guys started.
Kailanya Brailey:
We are. At this time, you all will be moved to your breakout room space.
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
As we're getting situated, if everybody would just take a moment and offer up a reflection on the What I Learned section or your key takeaways on the Padlet. If you have any questions that you'd like us to address in our remaining moments, if we can, those should be under the What I Wonder section on the Padlet, for Tisha. If you have any, please enter them. We'd love to know what you thought upon your reflections as you move forward, what are your key takeaways, what are some things you think your team should focus on moving forward.

Then, Tisha, while people are doing that, we did have a couple comments on the What I Wonder section and I thought maybe we could jump in with those while people are thinking about their learning.
Yatisha Blythe:
Yeah.
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
A really great question came across the chat today and that really had to do with accountability. People are learning and reinforcing what they know to be right to do for students who are experiencing homelessness, but in terms of families or educators, how can families hold the LEA accountable to do what they're supposed to do if they're not receiving the services that they know that they're entitled to? What is due process look like for that, or what would you suggest families do as next steps?
Yatisha Blythe:
I think it varies by state. There are some districts who have a grievance process. When we get calls related to that, if they feel like there's not been due process, or even down to those dispute resolutions, if they're not provided with a written explanation about what's going on and why their student may not identify under McKinney-Vento, then we encourage them to reach back out to the LEA and have that conversation with the liaison, but then also sharing of the role of the state coordinator for homeless education, they are essential as well. State coordinators do monitor the programs at the LEA level and they do provide technical assistance, but also a way to mitigate that is that we encourage liaisons, whenever possible, it's important to have those family engagement events. Sometimes those might need to be a virtual event, it might need to be something in person, but those are great ways to have those conversations.

Another way to do that too is if you have a high shelter population or have a great partnership between the liaison and the school system and those shelter partners, going in and having small gathering, small meetings, small community engagement events, and just keeping everyone really informed and making sure you're educating them as parents on what their rights are and what the rights are of their children.
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
Thank you for that.
Kailanya Brailey:
Yes, thank you. We do have another question are, and this is pertaining to early childhood. Are there trainings or sessions focused on focusing on childcare centers, family home providers, GS 110s? I know Head Start and pre-K have access, but would love to expand this to our other childcare settings. Are you aware of other trainings or sessions that focus on childcare?
Yatisha Blythe:
I think those vary too by state, because with early childhood centers there's different requirements. There are some states and school districts that have a mandated pre-K and then there are some that don't. We all know that kindergarten is not even mandated everywhere. It varies by state, but there are some resources. Again, depending upon what your role is, I encourage you to reach out if you know who your district liaison is, or if you don't know, look on their website, call their district office, find out who that person is and just having a conversation. Some liaisons work hard to have a parent advisory board.

Though, local COCs, at least in North Carolina and I know some other states are doing it too, the local COCs are doing some more work too around that family engagement piece, so making sure that liaisons are a part of the COC board and making sure that voice who can advocate for the youth is there and doing some more intentional work around making sure those services are in place for homeless children and youth. I encourage anybody, start with your liaison. That's the person who bears the majority of the responsibilities for ensuring the LEA is doing what they're supposed to do as well as them doing what they're supposed to do.

State coordinators are responsible for providing TA and training. Right now, with a lot of schools restarting the school year or starting in the next few weeks, there's probably a lot of training that's going to be going on around McKinney-Vento and raising awareness and making sure things are in place and folks are aware in the community at large about McKinney-Vento and the services available. I know with the American Rescue Plan funding getting out to a lot of school districts, that too is raising awareness around this student population. There's a lot of good things happening all across the country.
Kailanya Brailey:
Absolutely, thank you for that. I know we discussed sharing out takeaways from breakout sessions, but just because it's also 11:27, can we put the survey posted to the chat so that participants have access to that as well.
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
It's extremely important and helpful for you all to take a few moments. We do review the survey data and use that to inform upcoming projects and webinar series that we do. We would ask you to just take a moment and put your comments and the learning from the last two days, how you felt about things, any suggestions for improvement into that survey for us, please. It would be really, really helpful.
Kailanya Brailey:
Absolutely, thank you.
Yatisha Blythe:
There's a great comment that just came in about pushing for implementing federal guide. There actually is a McKinney-Vento federal guidance, and the link to that is in the PowerPoint from yesterday that's going to be shared out with everyone. Even though the law is the law, that's what we're all obligated to follow, but the Department of Ed did publish a guidance that helps everybody with their understanding of McKinney-Vento and what the requirements are and what the rights are of homeless children and youth. That guidance is available, and again, that link is in the PowerPoint.
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
Can we squeeze in one more question, do you think we can?
Yatisha Blythe:
Sure, sure.
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
I think this is a really important one, especially because we did a four-part series on this and this question brings us back to our first webinar, it was really about out-of-school providers and community partners. The question is what, as a community partner, can they do? What can community partners do now as a first step to help provide more supports to students and families that are experiencing homelessness?
Yatisha Blythe:
Start the relationship with the LEA. If you haven't heard from a liaison, if they're not aware of your services, start with them, start with your local school district. Seek them out and build that relationship, because it's that relationship that allows you to go ahead and start that inter-agency collaboration and that piece under McKinney-Vento that mandates that children are identified through collaboration with school staff in coordination with community agencies. A lot of times, referrals will come in, because again, with homelessness, people have to self-disclose. You can't go up to people and say, "Hey, I think you're experiencing homelessness. Let me identify you." They have to come to you and be willing, and it takes a little degree of vulnerability to share with someone that you're experiencing a housing crisis.

With that being said, just being able to have that conversation, because in the community arena, a lot of times you won't know a family's experiencing homelessness, or a child or a youth is, unless you work in an agency whose work is geared towards assisting homeless individuals. Just having that communication, establishing that relationship, that's the first step. Then from there, from that conversation, you can talk about, okay, these are the resources that I have to offer. How can we help? What do you need from us? What do the needs of the children in this community that are experiencing homelessness, what do they look like and how can we work together to make sure those things are happening?
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
Yeah, I think that's really important, because as a former school administrator, many administrators and counselors who are designated as the McKinney-Vento homeless liaison are wearing multiple hats.
Yatisha Blythe:
Oh, yes.
Kailanya Brailey:
Absolutely.
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
It's not a primary job, and in large, you may not even know what you don't know about what services are available outside and you may be scrambling to find them too.
Kailanya Brailey:
Absolutely.
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
To have people come and introduce themselves to you and also be proactive in that relationship goes a really long way for schools.
Yatisha Blythe:
It does.
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
It does. I agree with that, absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you.
Yatisha Blythe:
You're very welcome.
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
Lots of really good learning, I encourage you to look through those. As one person said, it absolutely takes a village for us to support our children. We are so grateful for you and your time with us today and yesterday, and for Tisha, for really imparting all this amazing wisdom on us and resources. We hope that you have gotten a lot out of the last two days, and we hope that you take some time to also fill out the survey. Thank you so much for joining us.
Kailanya Brailey:
Thank you all.
Yatisha Blythe:
Thank you.
Jessica Grotevant Webster:
Good luck to those of you heading back to school.
Kailanya Brailey:
Yes, have a great-
Yatisha Blythe:
Have a great school year.

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Are ALL the Children Well? A Community of Practice Part Two - MAEC, Inc.

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In the final installment of MAEC's four-part homeless education webinar series, we teamed with the National Center for Homeless Education (NCHE) for a two-day community of practice. Participants audited their policies and practices related to students experiencing homelessness and developed individualized action plans based on their findings.

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Day Two: What will you take back to your district, school, or organization from the Community of Practice? 

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Day Two: What will you take back to your district, school, or organization from the Community of Practice? 

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I just learned of this training today.  May I receive the previous sessions you provided?  Thank you!

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For children with IEP missing how do you suggest schools support if the setting is not available?

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Please share a model of the best interest meetings you are holding in your system.

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For Cyber schools, they do not/are unable to participate in National School Lunch Program. We are trying to get creative with this, but would love to know if anyone else has creative ways they are working with families to meet this need due to cyber non-participation in it. Also, would love to know how we can advocate for change at a more systemic level based upon virtual school options growing all over the country

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I wonder more about how the Mc-Kinney Vento homeless act impacts preschool children and homelessness, as a community schools coordinator at an early childhood center serving children ages 2-5. 

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I wonder more about how the Mc-Kinney Vento homeless act impacts preschool children and homelessness, as a community schools coordinator at an early childhood center serving children ages 2-5. 

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NCHE's Homeless Liaison Toolkit is a comprehensive resource that will assist both new and veteran local liaisons in carrying out their responsibilities. Updated to reflect the requirements of the McKinney-Vento Act, as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the 2020 edition of the Homeless Liaison Toolkit includes requirements of the law, good practices, sample forms, and links to resources. Sixteen chapters on topics essential to implementing the McKinney-Vento Act synthesize in an easy-to-read format the essentials that local liaisons must know in order to carry out their responsibilities.

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Homeless Liaison Toolkit - National Center for Homeless Education

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NCHE's Homeless Liaison Toolkit is a comprehensive resource that will assist both new and veteran local liaisons in carrying out their responsibilities. Updated to reflect the requirements of the McKinney-Vento Act, as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the 2020 edition of the Homeless Liaison Toolkit includes requirements of the law, good practices, sample forms, and links to resources.

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Resource Page for Unaccompanied Homeless Youth

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Resource Page for Unaccompanied Homeless Youth

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Guiding the Discussion on School Selection

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Guiding the Discussion on School Selection

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Use this link for recorded webinars/videos:

Determining Eligibility

School Selection

Doubled-Up

Unaccompanied Homeless Youth

Paving the Way to College

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Description: In this webinar, presenters from the National Center for Homeless Education and Child Care Aware of America will explore legislative requirements and implementation strategies for serving young homeless children under the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Program. Presenters from the Alabama Departments of Education and Human Resources also will discuss the development of a state-level collaboration to serve homeless families under CCDF in Alabama. Topics to be covered include:

Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (CCDBG) provisions related to serving young homeless children and their families

Requirements for reporting data on young homeless children served by CCDF providers, including understanding the definition of homeless to be used for data collection purposes

Provisions related to young homeless children included in the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Program Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (draft regulations)

State- and local-level strategies for collaborating to improve services to young homeless children and their families

Presenters will allow ample time to respond to questions.

Presenters:
Christina Dukes, National Center for Homeless Education
Kim Engelman, Child Care Aware of America
Jeanetta Green, Alabama Department of Human Resources
LaDonna Rudolph, Alabama Department of Education
Date recorded: September 20, 2016
Length: 1 hour, 2 minutes
Webinar recording: https://uncg.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5bhdhPI24y6Ar8F

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Description: In this webinar, presenters from the National Center for Homeless Education and Child Care Aware of America will explore legislative requirements and implementation strategies for serving young homeless children under the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Program.

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[USC02] 42 USC CHAPTER 119, SUBCHAPTER VI, Part B: Education for Homeless Children and Youths

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(2) In any State where compulsory residency requirements or other requirements, in laws, regulations, practices, or policies, may act as a barrier to the identification of, or the enrollment, attendance, or success in school of, homeless children and youths, the State educational agency and local educational agencies in the State will review and undertake steps to revise such laws, regulations, practices, or policies to ensure that homeless children and youths are afforded the same free, appropriate public education as provided to other children and youths.

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McKinney-Vento Definition of Homeless (legislative excerpt) 

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McKinney-Vento Definition of Homeless (legislative excerpt) 

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(i) children and youths who are sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason; are living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to the lack of alternative adequate accommodations; are living in emergency or transitional shelters; or are abandoned in hospitals;*

(ii) children and youths who have a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings (within the meaning of section 103(a)(2)(C));

(iii) children and youths who are living in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, bus or train stations, or similar settings; and

(iv) migratory children (as such term is defined in section 1309 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965) who qualify as homeless for the purposes of this subtitle because the children are living in circumstances described in clauses (i) through (iii).

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McKinney-Vento Definition – National Center for Homeless Education

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Subtitle VII-B of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (per Title IX, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act) defines homeless as follows:

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Education for Homeless Children and Youths Program: Non-Regulatory Guidance 

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Education for Homeless Children and Youths Program: Non-Regulatory Guidance 

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How can we (the families) hold LEA accountable to do what they are suppose to do. There's no accountability anywhere.

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Learning and the growth of communication and skills

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I have just really started working with this population since the pandemic. Just learning of this last session, I learned about the McKinney-Vento Act and read through a lot of the resources/organization that were provided.

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how can children’s be homeless and without an adult who gives them love and warmed words of support. Is hard to survive in the world with all the different dangers that a child can go through.

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Children’s experiencecing homeless have been shown to have higher levels of emotional and behavioral problems. Therefore it increase the risk of serious health problems like separation from their families.

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I learned that the resources for homeless students have guidelines that have the interest of the students and family

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I learned that the resources for homeless students have guidelines that have the interest of the students and family

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Families and children’s can access services like emergency shelters food clothing and many other things as needed. no matter the legal status of families.

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There should be more education around ESSA and McKinney Vento.

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Are their trainings or session focusing on child cares (centers, family-home providers, GS110's)? I know Head Start and Pre-K have access, but would love to expand this to our other child care settings.

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needing more collaboration for schools and community organization...and needing review process to make sure the schools are implementing

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There has been a lack of knowledge for school staff, specifically with the new teachers/staff.

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There should be Districtwide Policies and Procedures and not just schools doing their own thing for students and parents experiencing homelessness.

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Creating Community Hubs that families and schools can access that provide basic needs, SEL resources (Ohio is doing this) for families.

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As a Community Partner How Can We Help or What Should We Do As A 1st Step Now?

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Farm to School Network Chapters in various communities. Access to organic food for families (Rhode Island)

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Many agreed that it is hard to keep in touch with families experiencing homelessness. When referrals are made, we often don't hear what happened after the referral is made.

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It Takes A Village for Children and Families to Thrive

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It Takes A Village for Children and Families to Thrive

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Stronger collaboration with culturally, race-specific community engaged organizations that represent some families that may be experiencing homelessness.

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I learned that there is a lot of work that needs to be done around McKinney Vento and Homelessness.  I learned to be more observant of school staff interactions with parents and students and to establish better relationships with families to provide support.

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I want to conduct a very concise Needs Assessment that will inform our Community of Practice.