The Importance Of Homelessness In Schools

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Pages: 7

Motivation for the present study: In 20 years of teaching and supporting the individual needs of students in schools, I have found few resources on the educators’ perspective of teaching students who were impacted by homelessness. While teaching in a low socioeconomic urban middle school, I found many of the unique adaptations and classroom instructional refinements pertaining to supporting students who were homeless came through professional learning communities and peer collaborations. In my post secondary teaching practice with undergraduate and graduate teacher preparatory programs, I again found limited instructional material or course objectives addressed towards the homeless experience. Teacher preparatory material focused on “at …show more content…
Homeless individuals have experienced economic hardships and housing loss. They may live in motels, campgrounds, emergency shelters, transition housing, or be persons who are “doubling up,” which means they are living with family or friends. At times, people affected by homelessness may sleep in cars, abandoned houses, parks, and even alcoves under highways. Homeless persons can be migratory students, unaccompanied youth or those who have been affected by disaster (M-V:725(2)(B)(i–iv), …show more content…
The school system in which a documented homeless child is enrolled must remove barriers, which prevent homeless children from receiving an education. The Act addresses access through two options: the child may attend a school in the local attendance zone to where he or she is currently staying; or the child may attend their school of origin. The local attendance area school is defined as “any public school that non-homeless students who live in the attendance area in which the child or youth is actually living are eligible to attend” (M-V: 722(g)(3)(A)(ii), 2015). The McKinney-Vento Act describes school of origin as, “the school that the child or youth attended when permanently housed or the school in which the child or youth was last enrolled” (M-V:722(g)(3)(G), 2015). Parents or guardians are allowed to request that their child “stay in a school of origin for the entire time they are homeless. When they find permanent housing, they can remain in the school of origin until the end of the school year” (National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, 2011, p.