Local efforts aid homeless students but face complications

Homeless students face major obstacles that prevent them from receiving a quality education. While there are programs and local organizations in Dane County that attempt to address this problem on a local level, conflicting definitions of what it means to be homeless complicate their efforts. 

There are currently 1,116 students in the Madison Metropolitan School District who are homeless, and their numbers are rising, said Jennifer Waldner, the MMSD’s Homeless Liaison. 

Local Organizations Provide Support

(Photo credit: The Road Home)MMSD’s work on behalf of these students is done under the authority of the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act, Waldner explained. This federal law attempts to stabilize homeless students’ access to education.

McKinney-Vento works to protect the rights of each student by serving three functions, Waldner said. They include immediate enrollment, transportation and providing supplemental support and services if necessary. Immediate enrollment means each school is required to open its doors to homeless students, even in the absence of a birth certificate or other important documentation. The law also mandates transportation options in an effort to keep the student in the same school.

MMSD’s Transition and Education Program works to fulfill the goals of the McKinney-Vento act and more. Waldner says some of the many functions the TEP staff serves include providing resources for homeless families and aiding families in sudden crisis. TEP distributes donations such as socks, undergarments and backpacks.

Conflicting Definitions

A major discrepancy between the federal, city, and district level about what counts as homelessness makes it difficult for the TEP staff to maximize aid to homeless students. In addition to the more recognizably homeless population of people living in conditions like shelters, the federal McKinney-Vento law, and by extension MMSD, considers families that have to double-up in housing to be homeless as well. The city of Madison, however, does not consider families that are doubled-up to be homeless, Waldner said.

When the city receives resources, it will aid the certain families that fall under its definition of homelessness, Waldner said. In effect, a whole category of students that MMSD classifies as homeless will not be prioritized when receiving aid. 

These different definitions of what qualifies a family as homeless, as well as a lower visibility of homeless families that aren’t living in shelters, are major obstacles to giving homeless students a stable education, Waldner said.

“There’s not as much of a spotlight on family homelessness because it’s not as visible,” Waldner said. “Parents do anything to keep their kids off the street, including putting themselves in dangerous situations.”

Understanding Trauma

Waldner thinks one of the biggest obstacles homeless students face is a lack of the understanding of trauma from educators.

“They’re dealing with the trauma of the event that caused them to be homeless, as well as the actual trauma of being homeless,” Waldner said. “Some kids are so amazingly resilient.” 

When educators don’t take this trauma into account when working with homeless students, miscommunication can be common. If the child isn’t focusing in class, a teacher may assume he or she just doesn’t want to be there, while the problem, in fact, is much more complicated, said Qiana Holmes-Abanukam, the Education Specialist at the Road Home, a Dane County homeless shelter and organization.

One problem that tends to arise with homeless students is the kids lose a lot of instruction time if they switch schools, said Holmes-Abanukam.

If a child is moved to a school on the other side of town, the new class may be doing something totally different from what the student’s original school had exposed them to. A lack of flexibility in a classroom’s curriculum only increases the differences between the homeless student and his or her peers, Holmes-Abanukam said.

If kids never know how long they’ll be in one spot, it will be hard for them to get comfortable, said Holmes-Abanukam.

“They might feel like outsiders,” Holmes-Abanukam said. “Sometimes they’ll think, why bother to make connections?”

One step educators can take to prevent homeless students from feeling like outsiders at a new school is to remember to focus on the positive when contacting family members about a child’s class behavior.

“Kids are always full of energy and all over the place,” Holmes-Abanukam pointed out. “Instead of making parents feel even worse for being in an unstable (situation), give them a little hope.” 

Holmes-Abunakam suggested to focus on a child’s improvements and strengths during calls home or parent-teacher conferences and trying to make the parents feel like a part of the school.

Even as TEP and organizations like the Road Home attempt to help homeless students, there is only so much they can do when the city’s definition of who counts as homeless doesn’t include a large population of students in need.