District collects info on homeless students
By Laura Uribe-Center Special Programs Coordinator
May 22, 2008
As a district we have been required to identify all students
without permanent homes for several
years, but there had been no formal system in place for us to
report the data we collected on these students. However, this year,
districts are required to keep track of all students, Pre-K through
12th grade, who meet the definition of homelessness according to
the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. The data we collect on these
homeless students will be reported to the Texas Education Agency
(TEA) through an innovative system known as eGrants, a web-based
data collection system. The “education definition,” as it is known,
is much broader than other Federal definitions of homelessness,
encompassing four categories: shelters, double-up, unsheltered, and
hotels/motels. Districts will be required to report the numbers of
students in each of the categories, broken down by grade level.
Although some students may live in more than one of the defined
situations within the year, the system will only capture the
primary nighttime residence of the student when the school first
became aware of the student’s homeless status. That status will be
the one that is reported to TEA. Districts will only submit total
numbers of students with our permanent homes to TEA, not the names
of individual students. At Lytle ISD, a residence
questionnaire is included in the registration and beginning of the
year packet of forms parents must complete. It is at this time that
most students are identified as homeless. Most of the homeless
students we have identified in our district have been identified
using the situation of “doubling-up”. This means, that some of our
families are living with other families because of a financial
burden or emergency reason. For any information regarding the
services provided to our homeless students, please contact the
district homeless liaison, Laura Uribe-Center at 830-709-5100.
