In three segments, 7 Investigates covered the growing problem of Idaho students experiencing homelessness.
Thousands of Idaho kids were identified as homeless in the 2022-23 school year. School districts are required to count and support K-through-12 students experiencing homelessness under a little known federal law called the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. The law is meant to give them an equal shot at education.
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Tara Smallwood, Amber Raines, and Jessica Kauffman are experiencing homelessness in the Treasure Valley and have kids in the public school system; “My kids wouldn’t be the kids that they are if I didn’t have the program, or the help, or anything,” Smallwood said.
“If you’re a single parent income, it’s nearly impossible to survive,” Raines said. “It’s easy to get lost in the cracks.”
While most Idaho school districts are doing their best to ensure students’ success, it can be challenging to identify homeless students. Moreover, there is not much money, or incentives, out there to help them. Therefore, it’s likely hundreds more unhoused students are undercounted and unsupported.
The State Department of Education data shows that last school year, more than 9,100 public and charter school students in pre-K through 12th grade were identified as homeless, up 1,300 over the past five years. That equates to about 3% of all Idaho students.
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7 Investigates went to Interfaith Sanctuary’s hotel shelter as Smallwood’s kids were getting home from school. The parents who stay at the shelter have the same hopes for their children as any other parent.
“Honestly, right now, my main concern is them getting the best education that they can,” Smallwood said. “Because I don’t want them living the life I lived. I don’t want them living in the poverty life.”
There are more children like Smallwood’s experiencing homelessness all over Idaho. In 2018-2019, the number of homeless students was 7,810; in 2019-2020, it was 8,083; in 2020-2021, the number was 7,570; in 2021-2022, it rose to 9,296, and in 2022-2023, it was 9,145. The State Department of Education said children with disabilities, migrants, and English learners are disproportionately impacted.
“A lot of the times that can be contributed to just the economic climate that we’re in,” said Emily Sommer, Title IX-A coordinator with the Idaho State Department of Education. “That is a consideration. In addition, too, we’re doing a better job at identifying students through our training, through outreach, all those things.”
For parents and kids, the experience is much more than just statistical.
“You make enough money to not qualify for food stamps, but not enough money to fill your fridge with food,” Raines said.
Kauffman, whose kids are in the public school system, said toxic relationships, addiction, and instability in life led her to homelessness.
“I was kind of couch-hopping and trying to figure it out. And then I had gotten a DUI and went to jail, and then came here after that,” Kauffman said.
Families often have to move several times, which causes disruption in their kids’ education and development.
“My son sort of lost the passion to go to school because he just, you know, he didn’t really want to deal with it,” Kauffman said. “My daughter was a little younger. And so, for her things were just a little easier to adapt.”
Statistics show kids who experience homelessness at any point in their childhood score more poorly on standardized tests than others, have a higher need for special education, are more likely to fall behind, and are less likely to graduate high school.
A Center for Public Integrity analysis found graduation rates for unhoused Idaho students lagged more than 20-percent behind the average graduation rate. In 2017 and 2018, U.S. Department of Education cohort graduation rate data shows the overall graduation rate in Idaho was 81%, while the graduation rate for students experiencing homelessness dropped to 57%.
Kauffman’s son did not end up in a similar situation. She credits that, in part, to the federal law requiring public schools to assist homeless students to break the cycle of poverty.
“McKinney-Vento is the federal law that ensures students experiencing homelessness have access to education,” Sommer said. “By law, every school district has a McKinney-Vento liaison, and during enrollment, they have a housing questionnaire that they send out, and families can complete that questionnaire.”
Created in the late 1980s, and amended and updated over the decades, the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act requires all school districts to identify all unhoused students and unaccompanied youth. The definition of who counts as “homeless” is broad; it includes anyone who lacks a “fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence.” That means students who are unsheltered, staying in cars, in substandard housing, living in shelters or transitional housing, and in hotels and motels. However, the vast majority of students identified as homeless are living “doubled up” with friends or family.
Once they’re identified, the school must waive enrollment requirements like immunization records, refer families to services, support kids academically, and provide transportation so they can stay in the school they attended before becoming homeless.
“Phone calls from the social worker is where it began, if there’s anything that they could do to support me; offering for food, gas vouchers, the McKinney-Vento busing to keep her in the same school district even though we moved to a different one. Back to school clothing,” Raines said.
Under the act, the U.S. Department of Education also gives states money based on a complex formula. Then, school districts can apply through their state department of education for competitive sub-grants to implement the program at the district level.
“They would get help with sports that they wanted to do, which was really helpful because I was going through my program,” Kauffman said, “Pretty much anything we needed, [even] school pictures. Without the assistance, it would have been really difficult to navigate all the things to keep them included in the education system for sure.”
The law works to ensure unhoused children stay in school and have a fair shot at a future, and Raines and Kauffman can attest to its success.
“Kids that graduate from high school with either a GED or high school diploma are three and a half times less likely to experience homelessness in adulthood,” Sommer said. “So, we really, really want to push them and retain them and get them to that finish line there.”
Though it provides countless benefits to thousands of Idaho kids, 7 Investigates learned shortfalls in America’s homeless education law lead to undercounting of students and inadequate resources to help them.
As previously mentioned, every school district in the country is required to identify and support homeless students under McKinney-Vento. However, not every district applies or receives the extra federal money set aside to do that.
Jen Wright is the principal at Notus High School, as well as the school district’s federal programs director, grant coordinator, McKinney-Vento Liaison/Title IX coordinator.
She said in small districts, “We do it all.” As the district’s McKinney-Vento liaison, Wright keeps unhoused kids in school every day.
“If we can get them in school, then they have food, they have resources, and then I think our students don’t feel like they’re getting further behind,” Wright said. “Homeless doesn’t mean you’re on the street, necessarily.”
“The benefit is we know our families here. So we make sure they graduate or we figure out a plan,” Wright added. “Part of the advantage of being in a smaller district is we can greet them at the door, we can ask those questions, and then we can follow up.”
Wright makes sure kids enroll no matter what, educates families about opportunities for their children, refers them to health care and housing services, and so much more.
“We’re their safe space,” she said. “We are their home away from home. Sometimes we’re their only home, right?”
Last year in the Notus School District, 12% of students were identified as homeless — each one with a different backstory.
