Homeless Students: How Should We Intervene?

By the time homeless youths reach secondary education, 11.4% of them are proficient in math, and 14.6% in reading (Mohan, 2014). According to Educational Researcher, these lower scores are a product of residential mobility. The stress of constant emotional adjustment causes elementary school children to fall behind in developing executive functions (e.g. planning, time management, attention) and results in higher dropout rates (Dhaliwal, 2022).  

The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987, was designed to identify homeless students and redress these challenges. To this day, the act provides equal-opportunity services: taxis for far-away students, free meals and inclusion in enriched programs. But one condition in the act engenders some controversy. And that is, that “homeless students may not be separated from the mainstream school environment” (Mohan, 2014). 

The reasoning for this rule makes sense. Feelings of otherness arise when special programs are made for vulnerable students. A homeless child from San Francisco, when asked about separate schools for youths in poverty, stated that she would feel like she “wasn’t good enough to learn like the other students. (She) would rather go to a public school that was nice to the homeless. (She) wouldn’t want to be teased for the way (she) looked or smelled” (Larsen, 2002).

Judgment is an inescapable variable when it comes to being a homeless student, however. Reba, an eight-year-old girl aided under the McKinney Act, recounts her experiences: 

“Sometimes the teachers say things like, “Oh, Reba, you don’t have to pay for this trip….” We don’t have to pay because we are homeless, but when the teacher says it out loud, all of the kids stare at me and know we are poor. I hate that! Then one day I was wearing a coat that I had been given by my school and one of the teachers grabbed me and made fun of it; she said it came from Old Navy and wasn’t really a coat at all, but it was one the school had actually given me.” (Mohan, 2014).

Reba’s story proves that stigmatization is even more prevalent when homeless students are in mainstream systems. With privatized programming, there is more confidentiality. Lessons are tailored to the specific needs of homeless students, and there is less restrictive protocol. 

Dr. Elmira Hendrix in Minneapolis, has a program that helps homeless students with low self-esteem. In her studies, Hendrix has realized that homeless children think badly of themselves when they are isolated from their families or put in foster care. These children, when put into a school environment, then deal with this trauma through aggression. In a conventional school, these outbursts may be considered poor behaviour: leading to punishment that causes even lower self-esteem. With programs like Hendirx’s however, aggression is dealt with in role-play activities where children must help each other. Such a prosocial exercise reduces anger and develops manners (Root, 1990).

Separate schooling for homeless students should not be considered a problematic solution. These special institutions are temporary and allow students to meet basic needs - like food, shelter and emotional well-being - before being integrated into regular public school. Although it may seem wrong to divide people, private schooling ultimately helps foster community and a safe place to talk about issues associated with homelessness.

Works Cited:

Dhaliwal, T. (2022, June). Improving how we identify and support students experiencing homelessness. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/improving-how-we-identify-and-support-students-experiencing-homelessness/

Root, E. (1990, May). Educational Responses to Issues of Self Esteem and Trust in Homeless Students. University of North Texas. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED356084.pdf

Mohan, E. (2014). The Voices Behind the Numbers: Understanding the Voices of Homeless Students. Community Education Partnerships. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1046699.pdf

Larsen, C. (2002). Balancing the Books: The Stewert.B McKinney Homeless Assitance Act and separate schools for homeless children in Arizona. Hein Online https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/arzjl34&div=33&id=&page=