Homelessness among public school students is at an all-time high, and teens without a home face unique challenges.
Some teens are homeless with their families. But others are on their own, simply trying to get through life without anyone looking out for their well-being, says Barbara Duffield, director of policy and programs at the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth.
“They are typically homeless because of a very bad situation at home, abuse or neglect,” she says of unaccompanied homeless teens. On the flip side, teens who are homeless with their families may be in a parental role, taking care of younger siblings.
Of the nearly 1.26 million public school students who were homeless during the 2012-2013 school year, about 317,000 were in high school, according to data released last week from the National Center for Homeless Education.
[Read more about how there are more homeless students than ever before.]
Public schools are required under federal law to ensure homeless students have access to a free public education. Homeless youth are allowed to stay in their school, regardless of where they end up, and schools must provide students transportation to that school.
Districts have a designated liaison whose duties include identifying homeless youth, enrolling students in school, coordinating transportation and connecting students with other agencies to have their basic needs met, Duffield says.
But schools are not required to provide housing.
“At 17, kids are aging out of foster care, not aging into foster care,” says Beth McCullough, home and school liaison for Adrian Public Schools in Michigan.
Housing is among the biggest challenges for the teens she works with, she says, and foster care has not usually been an option for older teens.
McCullough, who is also the homeless education coordinator for Lenawee and Monroe counties in Michigan, says that the schools and community organizations in the area work together to place homeless teens with other families in the community and to provide them with the additional support they need to succeed.
The families who take the homeless students in act as mentors to the teens and help them transition to adulthood.
“These kids know that education is their way out of what they went through,” she says.
Young people who experience homelessness were 87 percent more likely to stop going to school, according to the 2014 Don’t Call Them Dropouts report from the America’s Promise Alliance and its Center for Promise at Tufts University.
[Learn about how districts are working to boost high school graduation rates.]
But when the services offered by public schools aren’t enough for these students, some community organizations fill the void.
“Most of the schools systems are already stretched with the funding,” says Cheryl Opper, founder and executive director of Schools on Wheels of Massachusetts. “Most of the funding goes toward the transportation for students to get back and forth to school.”
Her organization provides homeless teens with additional support to help them graduate high school and continue their education. Among their many services, they provide teens with tutoring for the SATs and help students negotiate financial aid packages for college.
When the day comes, they also help students move into college, Opper says.
“We become their family support system,” she says.
But identifying teens who are homeless in the first place can be a challenge, says Duffield, of the NAEHCY.
“They are even more aware of the social stigma of not having a place to stay,” she says, on these teens ‘ feelings. “They really want to fit in and blend in and look like everyone else.”
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Homeless High Schoolers Face Barriers to Education originally appeared on usnews.com
