New Hampshire lawyer and public education advocate Andru Volinsky reminds us that even children without a home have the right to an education.
Children who are housing insecure have the right to go to school. In a recent survey, New Hampshire was found to have 3300 children who were housing insecure attending public schools. Maine had 4400 and Vermont had 1600. There are over one million children across the nation who are in this category.
School districts receive federal funding to identify and assist children who are housing insecure through the McKinney Vento Homeless Assistance Act. The act provides the right to immediate school enrollment for transient or housing insecure students, even when records are not present. Qualifying students also have the right to remain in their school of origin even if they have moved out of district due to their housing insecurity. Qualifying students have the right to receive transportation to and from their school of origin and the right to receive support for academic success which may include counseling and nutritional services.
The act is supervised by the US Department of Education which makes grants to school districts. That’s the same DOE that the Heritage Foundation and President-elect Trump want to dismantle. Today, the act would be considered an anomaly because it was passed with non-partisan support and signed into law by staunchly conservative Republican president Ronald Reagan. The act was originally passed in 1987 under another name. The name was changed to posthumously honor Congressman Bruce Vento, a Democrat from Minnesota, and Congressman Stewart McKinney, a Republican from Connecticut, who worked together to address the issue of schooling for homeless youth. Last year, $129 million was distributed to schools pursuant to the act, about double the amount distributed in 2013. The McKinney Vento funds are distributed to states in proportion to their Title I population (kids in poverty).
Last week I wrote about the US Supreme Court case of Plyler v. Doe (1982) that requires states to admit children to public schools who are without authorization to be in the country. One of the strategies to undermine the constitutional right to attend school is to slow-walk enrollments by asking for all sorts of paperwork. Under the McKinney Vento Act, this slow-walk technique is illegal if the child is housing insecure or an unaccompanied youth.
A “child who is housing insecure” is defined as one without a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence. There is no fixed duration of homelessness that a child must meet to benefit from the act. Substandard housing doesn’t count and this includes housing that “lacks one of the fundamental utilities such as water, electricity, or heat; is infested with vermin or mold; lacks a basic functional part such as a working kitchen or a working toilet; or may present unreasonable dangers to adults, children, or persons with disabilities.” Children who live with relatives because of the loss of housing or turmoil in the family likely qualify for benefits as well. School districts are required to assign personnel to find, identify and help children who qualify for benefits.
