Removing barriers helps homeless students in Iowa succeed in school and in life

This is part of our 2016 editorial focus, Building blocks: Working together to make our communities great places to live.

The devastating impacts of childhood homelessness have been documented through decades of study. The stress and instability of being homeless only magnifies the negative health, developmental, behavioral and education outcomes already faced by children who live in poverty.

Public school is often the only stable environment a homeless child has access to, but it can be difficult for that child to thrive there. Nationally, students who experience chronic homelessness perform at an average of four grade levels below their peers. Homeless students are nine times more likely to drop out of school than students who have stable housing.

It's a problem that is largely invisible, but very real in Eastern Iowa. In the four years that Liz Birdsley has served as the homeless specialist in the Cedar Rapids Community School District, she has coordinated with between 500 and 600 homeless students each year in that district, alone. This school year, Birdsley is working with 620 students and their parents or caretakers.

'I think that number is a shock to a lot of people,” Birdsley said. 'We don't look around our community and see 600 school-aged children on the street.”

Most often, homeless children are housed in one of a variety of short-term arrangements: motels, shelters or other temporary housing, or doubled-up with other families - sleeping on couches, sofa-beds or floors. While keeping a roof over their heads, the lack of a consistent nighttime residence makes it hard for kids to focus on their studies, to participate in extracurricular activities or even to attend school with any consistency.

'It hides them away and makes them less visible,” she said. 'But even if the public isn't seeing it all the time, homelessness exists here and it is affecting our students. And, it doesn't appear to be decreasing.”

Recent changes in federal education law are meant to better address homeless children's academic struggles, and additional public investment has been earmarked for that purpose. But looming behind such measures are systemic issues school districts can't address alone. To stabilize the lives of area homeless students and to prevent others from falling into homelessness, the community, not just the schools, will need to collaborate in new ways.

MANY UNMET NEEDS

Federal law requires that school districts provide homeless students the same educational opportunities as their peers, but providing for the needs of students experiencing homelessness takes resources. Cedar Rapids is one of only a handful of Iowa school districts that receive federal assistance to help pay for services that range from connecting homeless students and their families with regional service organizations to providing school supplies or equipment needed for activities.

'We want to get rid of the ‘don't' for these students,” Birdsley said. 'If they don't have what they need, we want to find it and provide it.”

One of the most significant barriers for homeless students is lack of reliable transportation to and from school and extracurricular activities such as sports or music. Evening events, such as parent-teacher conferences, concerts, athletic events or art shows, pose even greater challenges.

Because students perform best when they are not being transferred from school to school, districts now must allow students to continue attending their original school even when their temporary dwelling place would normally require enrollment in a new school building. Regular school bus routes don't cross enrollment boundaries in this way. Instead, schools must rely on a patchwork of cab service, public transit and other out-of-the-box options that can strain the district's budget.

'Transportation has been a big obstacle, and one that hasn't received direct federal funding,” Birdsley said. 'The new provisions in the law will impact transportation, will likely increase demand, but I still think the idea behind the change makes sense - increasing stability and normalcy for the student.”

Portions of federal grants earmarked for homeless students can be used to cover added transportation costs. But only nine Iowa school districts, including Cedar Rapids, are recipients of those grants, according to the Iowa Department of Education. Districts without such assistance must stretch existing resources to meet demand.

In an effort to keep costs low, last fall Cedar Rapids schools began a partnership with Horizons' Neighborhood Transportation Service, or NTS. NTS buses provide free-of-charge rides for some homeless students living in area shelters or motels. Officials believe switching to buses will not only provide the students with a more typical school experience, but also will cut transportation expenses by roughly 50 percent for each student riding the bus.

It's one example of how Cedar Rapids schools is ahead of the national curve in forging the type of community collaboration necessary to meet the requirements of federal education law and, hopefully, begin to decrease the negative impact of childhood homelessness.

LIMITED RESOURCES

Other new requirements - professional development for school homeless liaisons, enhanced outreach and identification of homeless students, more detailed demographic reporting, better access to early childhood development programs - also will require additional local resources.

Since 2009, $65 million per year has been allocated to the states to address the needs of homeless students. Iowa's portion is distributed through a competitive grant process to districts that report having at least 25 homeless students.

New education law increases federal funding by roughly 20 percent to $85 million, but it's still too early to know how the increase will make its way to Iowa districts. Staci Hupp, spokeswoman for the Iowa Department of Education, says the agency will soon begin development of the ESSA plan required by the start of the 2017 school year. Existing grants for homeless students don't expire until 2018. New identification and reporting requirements for students experiencing homelessness begin this fall.

What we know is 'education ends homelessness,” said Barbara Duffield, director of policy and programs for the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth. It's a tagline often used by her agency. 'We cannot address deep-seated poverty if we are only looking to house a student for a day.” Identifying students who are homeless is crucial, as is providing the high-quality educational resources and support envisioned by the law. The two together are considered the surest way to prevent intergenerational poverty and give more children the opportunity to grow up to be productive and engaged citizens.

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