The McKinney-Vento Program is designed to address the problems that homeless children and youth face in enrolling, attending, and succeeding in school. Under this program, the SCDE 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.

Homeless children and youth must have access to the educational and other services that they need to enable them to meet the same challenging State student academic achievement standards to which all students are held. In addition, homeless students may not be separated from the mainstream school environment based solely on the fact that they are experiencing homelessness.

Who is homeless?

The Federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act defines children and youth who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence as homeless. This includes children and youths who:

• share the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason (sometimes referred to as “doubled-up”);

• live in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to lack of alternative adequate accommodations;

• live in emergency or transitional shelters;

• are abandoned in hospitals;

• 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;

• live in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing (e.g., housing that lacks any one of the fundamental utilities, does not have working a kitchen or plumbing, is overcrowded, or infested),  bus or train stations, or similar settings; and

• Migratory children who qualify as homeless because they are living in circumstances described above.

• Unaccompanied youth who qualify as homeless because they are living in circumstances described above.

Students whose living situations meet this definition have educational rights and are eligible to receive services under the McKinney-Vento Act.

Parent/Guardian Resources

What You Need to Know to Help Your Child in School - English

Lo que Necesita Saber para Ayudar a Su Hijo en la escuel - Spanish

School Help for Homeless Children with Disabilities:  Information for Parents

Educational Rights of Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness

Find Child Care

• Understanding and Finding Child Care
• Financial assistance for families
• Health and social services
• Child development and early learning

Birth to 5:  Watch Me Thrive - Families