• MCKINNEY-VENTO HOMELESS EDUCATION 
    ASSISTANCE ACT

    The goal of the McKinney Vento Homeless education act is to ensure that each homeless child or youth has equal access to the same free, appropriate public education, including public pre-school education, as provided to other children and youths.

    The Massachusetts Department of Education has adopted Section 725(2) of Act regarding the definition of homeless children and youth:

    • Individuals who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence or have a primary nighttime residence in a supervised, publicly or privately, operated shelter for temporary accommodations (including welfare hotels, congregate shelters, and transitional housing for the mentally ill), an institution providing temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized, or a public or private place not designated for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings.

      This definition shall include:

    • Children and youth who are sharing the housing of other people 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 adequate accommodations; are living in emergency or transitional shelters; are abandoned in hospitals; or are awaiting foster care placement; 

    • Children and youth 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;

    • Children and youth who live in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, bus or train stations, or similar settings;

    • Migratory children (as such term is defined in section 1309 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965) who qualify as homeless because they are living in circumstances described above; and Unaccompanied youth a youth not in the physical custody of a parent or guardian.

      DESE Link: https://www.doe.mass.edu/sfs/mv/

      HOMELESS EDUCATION LIAISON
      Barbara Cerwonka, Administrator of Student Services
      508-699-1309