Politics & Government
In Case You Missed it: Northshore School District Copes With the Financial and Social Toll of Homeless Students
Helping homeless students stay in the school they started at has proven successful in keeping those children in school.
A team of InvestigateWest reporters and researchers collaborating with Patch local editors spent the last several months looking at how Washington is grappling with a growing population of homeless students -- even as budget cuts further slash their ability to meet their federal obligation to help those students.
Among the findings statewide and in Woodinville published this week:
- In the 2009-2010 school year, schools reported 21,826 homeless students statewide, up 30 percent from the 2006-07 school year.
- Within school districts with the highest number of homeless students, districts saw increases in the number of students without regular homes ranging from 3 percent to 104 percent.
- The Northshore School District counted 182 homeless students in 2010-11, up from 162 in the 2009-2010 year. For the full story
- That number is less than one percent of the 18,370 students in the school district.
- Under the federal McKinney-Vento Act, school districts are required to identify and report homeless students and to guarantee those students transportation so they can stay at their original schools even if they have been forced to find emergency shelter outside the district. The cost to the districts to meet this mandate is heavy.
- A small 2006 pilot study by the Washington State Department of Transportation found that while homeless kids typically had lower grades and Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) scores than non-homeless students, the grades and scores were better among those homeless students who got to stay in their original schools.
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