Fayette school districts’ personnel tasked with handling homelessness
By federal law, every school district is required to assign an employee to act as the homeless liaison.
It is this person’s responsibility to identify students experiencing homelessness as outlined by the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act — which provides guidelines for districts in handling homelessness — and ensure students are enrolled and provided resources to succeed in the classroom.
“This law has a lot of intricacies,” said social worker Jeff Sigado, who has been employed with Brownsville Area School District for 17 years and serves as the district’s homeless liaison.
“To do it effectively, someone should know this law inside and out to provide services the child needs.”
When a Uniontown Area School District family was displaced from their home earlier this school year, one district employee in particular was called to action.
The district’s homeless liaison, who works to assist homeless students to ensure they receive a consistent education, quickly reached out to a local church organization on behalf of the family in need of basic essentials.
“If a parent needs to make a call (to report homelessness), I’m usually the first one to get the call,” said Terry Williams. “I’m the one that needs to make sure that it’s all reported correctly.”
A school district homeless liaison assesses McKinney-Vento eligibility and the needs of students and their families who are experiencing homelessness.
They coordinate with agencies and school staff to remove educational barriers for students and ensure appropriate support services.
Ultimately, they monitor student progress.
“Our priority is making sure they can access the amenities they need here at school to be successful students,” said Frazier School District homeless coordinator Billi Jo Huffman.
Huffman is the point of contact for the district to provide help if parents are willing to accept services.
“If no parents (are involved), we’re just making sure that there is some consistency in their world. Keep them coming to school just so there is some normalcy,” she said.
Sigado’s position in Brownsville is an exception to most districts, which do not employ full-time social workers that can bring expertise to the role of homeless liaison.
In many cases, the liaison is an administrator for which homeless coordinator becomes another facet of his or her job, an additional responsibility on tops of several others.
Traci Kuhns is in her first year as homeless liaison for Connellsville Area School District. She also serves as principal of West Crawford Elementary School, a position in which she became accustomed to identifying and working to assist homeless students due to the nature of her role.
“As principal, I’m working with homeless students already, and it’s just about going further in depth to meet those needs,” said Kuhns, adding that her role of liaison comprises only small percentage of job because of the district’s relatively low homeless count.
As liaison, she is tasked with keeping track of the district’s homeless students.
“The biggest part of the job is making sure they can attend school (through providing transportation service) and keeping their education consistent,” Kuhns said. “You want to make sure all students are served in the ways they need to be served.”
To Sigado in Brownsville, the job means connecting with students and families to ensure that they know resources are available and that the district can provide assistance.
“They don’t get this way overnight. Many families have been in the system for a long time, and for one reason or another they become disenfranchised,” said Sigado.
“But it’s about developing working relationships with these students and their families so they trust you, and that takes time.”
Sometimes, however, families are rendered homeless overnight. A house fire or natural disaster might force a family out of their home and into a shelter or to the residence of relatives or friends.
Under McKinney-Vento, students in such situations are considered homeless, and it is the school district’s responsibility to provide consistency in their education. Districts help facilitate that by arranging transportation to school, even if a student now resides in another school district.
It’s required under the McKinney-Vento Act, said Albert Gallatin homeless liaison Chris Pegg, for a district to act in a student’s best interest to ensure continued education in his or her school of origin.
If a student is forced to move to another district, the two districts will work together to coordinate transportation, he said.
“We’ll share the responsibility to make sure the child has a steady place for their education,” said Pegg.
While the liaison is a district’s main contact for issues involving homelessness, Laurel Highlands supervisor of pupil personnel services Lori DiCenzo said all the responsibility doesn’t fall on just one person, but is instead a group effort to assist students in need.
“We hold a team meeting to determine what is in the best interest of the child as far as education,” said DiCenzo.
The team works to keep the student in his or her district of origin and guidance counselors and social workers meet with the student’s family to determine if they need assistance from outside resources, DiCenzo said.
Despite a team effort, most districts are under-equipped to deal with high rates of homelessness, Sigado said.
The role of liaison is multifaceted, and providing outreach is merely one part of the job, he said. There’s also the time-consuming process of informing staff as to which students are homeless so they can provide them with the appropriate resources.
“Suffice it to say that most districts could use at least a full-time staff to work with this population in order to identify and serve this group properly.”