How schools used pandemic tools to identify and serve students experiencing homelessness

How schools used pandemic tools to identify and serve students experiencing homelessness

Research from the University of Michigan sheds new light on how school districts have used their share of $800 million in pandemic relief funds specifically dedicated to educating children and youth experiencing homelessness.

The researchers found that districts were most effective at identifying a home questionnaire at the beginning of each school year and whenever a parent or teacher reported a change in a student's home speech.

The results provide unique insight into which strategies are most effective for schools across the country to identify and serve students experiencing homelessness.

In 2020, the number of students identified by schools as homeless fell despite record levels of unemployment and increased hardship across the country as the economy shut down due to the pandemic. The move to virtual learning prevented schools from knowing who was experiencing homelessness and presented challenges in keeping up with those families and students, the findings showed.

Analysis by Poverty Solutions at UM and Schoolhouse Connection brought attention to this trend and informed the allocation of an additional $800 million for school services in the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act. The American Rescue Plan without Children and Youth Funds expanded the number of school districts that received dedicated dollars to identify and support children experiencing homelessness.

Recognizing when students are experiencing homelessness is the critical first step in providing students with resources to ensure they can continue to fully participate in school, as required by federal law. Seeing an increase in students identified as homeless isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's worse when students without a stable place go unnoticed and unsupported. “

Jennifer Erb-Downward, director of housing stability programs and policy initiatives at Poverty Solutions at UM

Erb-Downward co-authored a policy report that offers recommendations for how schools can improve their identification of students experiencing homelessness in New York based on shelter skills based on interviews with 18 students. Schoolhouse Connection and the New York State Education Department supported the research.

To learn more about how schools used the funds and what helped them successfully identify students experiencing homelessness, researchers at Poverty Solutions sorted New York school districts outside of New York City by identifying how many students they identified as experiencing homelessness. They addressed school district inactivity issues from three categories of school districts:

• Distrikte mit guter Identifizierung, was bedeutete, dass sie für den Prozentsatz der als Obdachlosigkeit identifizierten Studenten im obersten Quartil des Staates waren.
• Bezirke mit geringer Identifizierung, die als eine hohe Kinderarmutsrate definiert wurden, aber weniger Studenten als Obdachlosigkeit als den landesweiten Durchschnitt identifiziert.
• Bezirke ohne Identifizierung, was bedeutete, dass der Distrikt keine Studenten als Obdachlosigkeit identifiziert und mehr als 1.000 Studenten eingeschrieben hatte. Es ist höchst unwahrscheinlich, dass ein Distrikt keine Schüler mit Obdachlosigkeit hat. Dies ist ein Zeichen dafür, dass dem Distrikt ein System fehlt, um sie zu identifizieren.

Another important factor was having bus drivers work with school homelessness connections and identifying students who do not have a stable place to live.

“Bus drivers are often the first to notice when students don't show up at their usual pickup location or when families drop off children at their usual stop but no longer live there,” said John Bulat, data and policy analyst at Poverty Solutions, who co-authored the policy brief.

It's important that the liabilities of school homelessness build trust between partner organizations and families, who often worry about researchers disclosing housing shortages.

"School liaisons, who had approval to use ARP-HCY funds to deliver flexible cash to families - such as gas cards and storing gifts - leveraged the importance of these interactions. Providing direct resources needed by families opened the doors of communication and trust," said William Lopez, a clinical associate professor of health behavior and cross-leadership, in the policy associates' solution duration Solvents for the solver of politics, the solvents for povers solvents, the solution connection, the solution plants, the solution plants, the solution plants with the solvent for the deletion of health behavior, opened.

Researchers found the following trends in how school districts structure their homelessness services:

• Kleinere Distrikte mit einer guten Identifizierung von Studenten, die Obdachlosigkeit erleben, haben tendenziell einen hochrangigen Administrator, der als Obdachlosigkeit lang dient und sich dafür einsetzt, alle Mitarbeiter zu schulen, um Anzeichen von Obdachlosigkeit zu erkennen.
• Größere Schulbezirke mit guter Identifizierung haben ein Netzwerk von Menschen in jeder Schule mit Unterstützung eines hochrangigen Bezirksverwalters, um sich aktiv an Identifizierung und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit zu beteiligen.
• Schulbezirke mit geringerer Identifizierung hatten tendenziell Verbindungen der Obdachlosigkeit, die mehrere andere Rollen erfüllten und die Befugnis fehlte, ein Netzwerk von Unterstützung im gesamten Distrikt zu schaffen.
• Unter den Distrikten, in denen keine Studenten mit Obdachlosigkeit festgestellt wurden, waren selbst grundlegende Kontaktinformationen für eine Verbindungsverbindung von Obdachlosigkeit nicht verfügbar.

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