McKinney Vento Education Program

The McKinney-Vento program addresses 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. LEAs must ensure homeless students have access to the services they are entitled to so they are empowered to achieve the same state academic standards required of all students. Homeless children and youth should be integrated into the student body at large and 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. (Texas Education Agency, 2014)

Who is homeless? (Sec. 725) The term "homeless children and youth"—

(A) means individuals who lack fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence …; and

(B) includes—

(i) children and youths who are sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason; are living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to the lack of alternative accommodations; are living in emergency or transitional shelters; are abandoned in hospitals; or are awaiting foster care placement

(ii) children and youths who have a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings …

(iii) children and youths who are living in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, bus or train stations, or similar settings; and

(iv) migratory children who qualify as homeless for the purposes of this subtitle because the children are living in circumstances described in clauses (i) through (iii).

McKinney-Vento Program Liaison

Cesily Peeples

Assistant Superintendent

(903) 896-4363

peeplesc@fruitvaleisd.com