ARP-HCY Spotlights: Transportation

Lawton Public Schools (LPS) are using ARP-HCY funds to meet both immediate needs and to engage students in learning. Working with the IT Director, the district secured contracts with Verizon to provide cell phones to unaccompanied homeless youth. So far, LPS has distributed one cell phone that is not only serving to support the youth’s communication with school, but has also served to boost this student’s self-confidence as technology access now mirrors that of the youth’s peers. LPS asked the youth to sign an agreement at the time of distribution, agreeing to answer when school calls, and agreeing to revisit the contract during the summer if the student enrolls in summer school and is employed. In addition, district technology staff met with the student to review how to use the phone and to talk about social media use.

In addition, transportation remains a barrier for students experiencing homelessness at LPS. There have been challenges with gaps of time between transportation requests and when transportation begins. LPS has traveling counselors who were providing transportation during this interim time, but it is often unreliable depending on counselor schedules. Because of this, ARP-HCY funds were used to purchase a vehicle. The vehicle will also be used for virtual students to access school services. It will also be used for home visits to students and families and to transport students to needed health services.

LPS currently funds two part-time mentors and a McKinney-Vento Administrative Assistant out of the Title I, Part A homeless reservation.The mentors are retired coaches who support students experiencing homelessness by checking in with them, checking on attendance and grades, and providing additional support. With ARP-HCY funds, LPS was able to hire a retired educator to serve as a mentor in the middle school. In addition to this staff member, LPS hired a McKinney-Vento Outreach Specialist. The Outreach Specialist is a social worker who is focusing on supporting students experiencing homelessness in the district’s virtual program. The Outreach Specialist not only checks in on students and supports their academic engagement, but also can follow up with students who are not yet identified. Doing home visits to these students, the Outreach Specialist is able to identify new students or refer those who are not experiencing homelessness to other school staff for support.

LPS is currently brainstorming ways to support students experiencing homelessness in preschool. The vision is to not only support young learners, but also provide education and training for families so that learning can continue no matter what the family’s living situation.

“Whatever you thought you couldn’t do, now is the time to do it with these funds. We’ve not been able to support our students in these ways until now.”

-Andrea Winstead, Title I/IX Facilitator

As of the end of November 2022, Pinellas County Schools (PCS) had 3, 062 students identified, approximately 6% of their student population. After receiving $1.9 million in ARP-HCY Part I and Part II funds, PCS prioritized providing wraparound services and housing-related supports, staffing, and transportation to support the district’s students experiencing homelessness. The majority of the funds were dedicated to supporting housing partnerships.

With a collaborative contract already in place between the city of St. Petersburg, PCS, and other community partners, the district was able to expand this cooperative agreement to support housing for families using ARP-HCY funds. The community organization, Directions for Living, provides programs to get families into shelter and housing. Prior to ARP-HCY, this program collaboration was specific to students and families at the highest need schools with the highest numbers of students experiencing homelessness. Because of ARP-HCY funds, this contract was expanded to include any family identified as experiencing homelessness in the district. McKinney-Vento points of contact in each building can refer any family to this program. With just over $1 million in ARP-HCY funds going toward this housing collaboration, additional case managers were hired to support families not only get into housing, but also to support those at risk of homelessness by advocating with landlords and helping remove past evictions from rental histories, and place families in motels temporarily. This housing program can serve up to 90 families in a school year, and PCS has already referred more than 90 families to this program. The case managers work to remove barriers to the resources and supports that exist within the county.

In addition, PCS has used ARP-HCY funds to support a partnership with a community organization, Clothes for Kids, that provides uniforms to students. Prior to this partnership, PCS was using district funds to buy uniforms for students on an as needed basis; however, with ARP-HCY and Title IX funds, PCS is able to partner with Clothes for Kids so families can go to this organization to shop for uniforms and clean clothes for a week at a time, removing this barrier for students to attend school.

PCS is also using ARP-HCY funds to expand a collaboration with the community program Starting Right Now. This program serves unaccompanied homeless youth, providing housing, mentors and life skills to support students through high school and graduation, postsecondary planning, and continuing to support them through their higher education. District points of contact can refer unaccompanied homeless youth to this program, and ARP-HCY funds COVID health and hygiene protocols for referred students.

Using approximately $500,000, ARP-HCY funds made it possible to expand the district’s existing contract with Ever Driven Transportation, a private rideshare with vetted drivers for school of origin transportation. With the additional transportation option, attendance and stability have increased, most notably for students at the secondary level.

Finally, ARP-HCY funds were used to hire an additional staff member who will take over as homeless liaison in December of 2023. The liaison position is currently funded through the Title I, Part A homeless reservation, so funding for this position will shift from ARP-HCY to Title I, Part A when funds are no longer available.

PCS is carefully tracking data on these partnerships and initiatives, with the goal that community partners will step up to fund these once ARP-HCY funds are no longer available. Because the data shows the efficacy of the work, community partners will be able to see how their funding can be used in tandem with PCS funds. This includes other available grant application opportunities, expanding existing district contracts, and shifting district funds to best meet needs. The district prioritizes networking with community partners to show the successes of the collaborations and the need for further partnership and funding.

“We are visible in the community, reminding our community partners of McKinney-Vento so that our housing partners can also be McKinney-Vento advocates. We connect families to these partners who are experts at moving families into housing because our expertise is education. We’ve built a successful model of partnerships with our housing providers, and it’s been the best way to use ARP-HCY funds to support our families.”
-Dr. Christine Cantrell, Student and Community Support Services Homeless Liaison

EdAdvance is one of Connecticut’s six Regional Educational Service Centers, and serves Western Connecticut. EdAdvance is using ARP-HCY funds to increase staffing capacity. It will be hiring a part-time case manager, who will focus on outreach to youth experiencing homelessness, and will provide assistance to families experiencing homelessness seeking affordable housing. EdAdvance also will be hiring an early childhood specialist to do community outreach and enroll young children experiencing homelessness in school, early intervention programs, and other early childhood programs. This addresses needs determined in visits to domestic violence shelters and the local home- visiting program, which revealed increased numbers of young children experiencing homelessness. In addition to these positions, EdAdvance will be hiring a part-time van driver to help meet the growing transportation needs of McKinney-Vento students, starting in the fall. EdAdvance also used ARP-HCY funds to install WiFi routers in nearby shelters, as it was discovered that regular school-provided hotspots were not sufficient to meet the connectivity needs of families in shelters. ARP-HCY will also continue to be used to provide other services, such as emergency hotel stays, gas cards, camperships, and tutoring for students.

“Having additional ARP-HCY funds has been a gift to actually have resources at the ready for plans and the ability to make change with McKinney-Vento families by investing in staff to enhance outreach and support.”- Michelle Anderson, Director of Early Childhood and Family Programs

New Philadelphia City Schools has recently experienced an influx of students arriving from Guatemala. In a district of 3,100 students, hundreds are identified as English learners and unaccompanied homeless youth. These students arrive with limited educational experience and different educational expectations from their home country. This often means that in rain or snow, students arrive late or miss school altogether, as may be typical in their home country. In addition, New Philadelphia has a walk zone of one mile, and many of these students live just within the walk zone. The school social worker and the Federal Programs Coordinator collaborated to consider how ARP-HCY funds could support the attendance of this group of Guatemalan students identified as unaccompanied homeless youth. Using data, they determined that many of their unaccompanied middle and high school English Learners were not attending because of the lack of busing in the walk zone, and students simply aren’t wanting to walk that far so early in the morning or in inclement weather.

As a result, the district decided to use ARP-HCY funds to purchase bikes to break down the barriers of attendance for the Guatemalan students and other students identified as experiencing homelessness. In addition, ARP-HCY funds will be used for minor remodeling of an existing on-site modular building to create a space for meeting student needs, including storage bins and clothing racks to organize student supplies. The modular will house the bikes for students, as well as hygiene and school supplies, clothing, shoes, and other basic needs for students experiencing homelessness. ARP-HCY funds will also cover the salary of a part-time staff person to organize and manage this space, providing a one-stop shop for students and school staff to meet the needs of students and provide bikes for transportation. The district will monitor the attendance of students utilizing bikes for transportation to determine the success of this model. Because there are many students in the district who ride bikes to school, this mode of transportation will not stigmatize the students experiencing homelessness. Finally, the district anticipates using ARP-HCY funds to purchase prepaid cell phones for students to maintain better connections and engagement with school.

“We are excited to get this up and running and to really be able to help these kids. It will be possible because of the extra ARP-HCY funds. Many of these kids are largely unsupervised because they are unaccompanied homeless youth, but they are still expected to attend school. We believe providing bikes will help make that happen.”

– Laurie Hall, Federal Programs Coordinator

To better understand how their ARP-HCY funds should be spent, Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) developed a survey that was sent to students and parents experiencing homelessness, along with staff and community partners. Using current and past identified student information, MPS was able to use mini-grant funds received from Education Leads Home to provide gift cards for completing the survey, reaching over 200 unique students and parents of students experiencing homelessness. By asking questions about barriers, as well as what has helped students and families in the past, MPS identified three key areas to invest their ARP-HCY funds: transportation, basic needs, and mental health. They have matched those needs with ARP-HCY funds and taken steps toward hiring a transportation scheduler, bringing on a summer social worker focused on mental health needs of students experiencing homelessness, and partnering with the local housing authority to provide wrap-around support for accessing housing vouchers. To learn more about the survey and the other ways in which MPS plans to use ARP HCY funds, view this short presentation.