Report: Not all homeless students in Pa. tallied
A new report says student homelessness has increased in Pennsylvania in recent years, but evidence exists that the number of students experiencing homelessness in the state remains undercounted.
This week’s report from Research for Action, a Philadelphiabased, nonprofit education research organization, also raised concerns that the COVID19 pandemic will deepen the problem.
Anna ShawAmoah, a policy associate with RFA who authored the report, said state and local officials must act quickly to provide support to students experiencing homelessness.
“There’s already many years of evidence showing that students experiencing homelessness are not being identified and therefore are not receiving the services that would help them to have an equal educational experience to that of their peers,” Ms. Shaw-Amoah said. “Now, in the midst of COVID, there is so much evidence showing that there are likely going to be more students and families in temporary housing.”
Data in the report comes from what the state’s Education Department provides to the U.S. Department of Education. The latest available numbers were from the 2018-19 school year.
The report said more than 31,000 students, or 1.8% of all students, were identified as homeless in Pennsylvania in 2018-19. That number represented a 37% increase from the 2013-14 school year, even though overall student enrollment declined by 1% during the same time period.
Ms. Shaw-Amoah said
multiple factors caused the increase, including improvements to the way students living in homeless settings are identified over the years.
Still, Pennsylvania ranks only 36th out of 50 states in identification of students experiencing homelessness per schoolage children in poverty, indicating that the state likely underidentifies those students. Pennsylvania schools identified 10.1 students experiencing homelessness per 100 school-age children in poverty, while 15.7 per 100 were identified nationally.
“Why is it important to identify [students experiencing homelessness]?” the report said. “Not only are school districts legally liable to identify SEH, but these highly mobile students have also been through traumas and require additional resources to serve effectively and achieve academically. Due to systemic barriers, students of color, LGBT students, older youth living on their own, and students who are expectant or parenting are overrepresented among SEH.”
Students identified as homeless are entitled to supports such as transportation, credit recovery and the ability to transfer to a school closer to where they are living to help them have an education more closely aligned to their peers.
Student homeless rates are consistently higher in cities in Pennsylvania, according to the report. But from 2013-14 to 2018-19, student homelessness in suburbs and towns and in rural areas grew at higher rates than in cities.
The rate of students identified as living in a homeless setting varies greatly among school districts in Pennsylvania, with the highest at 38% and the lowest at 0%. Ms. Shaw-Amoah said that was concerning because it shows that some schools were identifying students experiencing homelessness well while others had “a long way to go.”
She said schools can improve their identification procedures by using screening tools, such as adopting a housing question on paperwork at the beginning of the school year. Schools can also work with community organizations to help identify students living in homeless settings — a method used by Pittsburgh Public Schools, she said.
Pittsburgh’s identification rate — 14 out of 100 — is close to the national average and more than three times higher than Philadelphia. Pittsburgh is in the top half of districts in the state at identifying student homelessness.
Ms. Shaw-Amoah said an integrated data system between Pittsburgh Public Schools and city agencies may account for the higher identification rate.
“That allows them to do a data match of their students experiencing homelessness in shelters with their school list so those students are immediately identified,” she said.
But that method will not find every student considered to be homeless. Part of the reason why the numbers are undercounted is because of the broad definition the government uses to identify students experiencing homelessness.
The federal government considers students to be homeless if they “lack a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence.” That includes students who are living in a shelter or transitional housing, are staying in a hotel or motel, or are temporarily sharing another person’s residence because of a lack of housing or economic hardship — the most common living situation for students experiencing homelessness.
Those students may face more challenges trying to access their education during the pandemic.
Students experiencing homelessness “are especially vulnerable in the era of remote or mixed-delivery instruction, since they often lack a stable place to learn during the day,” the report said. “As a result of these and other barriers, SEH have lower academic achievement, higher truancy rates, lower high school graduation rates and higher dropout rates.”
And as the pandemic continues, increased numbers of job losses and evictions will cause more families to lose their homes, forcing even more students to become homeless.
“A lot of those families are going to be either sharing the housing of another family or another person or they’re going to be in housing that does not meet the sanitary conditions of proper housing,” Ms. Shaw-Amoah said. “Those situations qualify students for homeless services.”