McKinney-Vento and Foster Care

The McKinney-Vento program is designed to address the problems that homeless children and youth have faced in enrolling, attending, and succeeding in school. Under this program, State educational agencies (SEAs) must ensure that each homeless child and youth has equal access to the same free, appropriate public education, including a public preschool education, as other children and youth. Homeless children and youth should have access to the educational and other services that they need to enable them to meet the same challenging State student academic achievement standards to which all students are held. In addition, homeless students may not be separated from the mainstream school environment. States and districts are required to review and undertake steps to revise laws, regulations, practices, or policies that may act as a barrier to the enrollment, attendance, or success in school of homeless children and youth.

The program is authorized under Title VII-B of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (42 USC 11431 et seq.), (McKinney-Vento Act). The program was originally authorized in 1987 and, most recently, reauthorized by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

The McKinney-Vento Act defines “homeless children and youth” as individuals who lack a fixed regular, and adequate nighttime residence. The term includes:

• Children and youth who are: - sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason (sometimes referred to as doubled-up); - living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to lack of alternative adequate accommodations; - living in emergency or transitional shelters; - abandoned in hospitals; or - awaiting foster care placement;
• Children and youth who have a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, regular sleeping accommodation for human beings;
• Children and youth who are living in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, bus or train stations, or similar settings; and
• Migratory children who qualify as homeless because they are living in circumstances described above.

• The school of origin: the school that the child or youth attended when permanently housed or the school in which the child or youth was enrolled.
• The local attendance area school: any public school that non-homeless students live in the attendance area in which the child or youth is actually living are eligible to attend.

NO- Under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, children and youth experiencing homelessness have the right to immediate enrollment, even if lacking paperwork normally required for enrollment, such as: Birth certificate, Immunization or other health/medical records, previous academic records, proof of residence, and proof of guardianship.