According to the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act: “A homeless person is an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence, including children and youth:
- Sharing housing due to loss of permanent housing,
- Living in motels, hotels, trailer parks or camping grounds due to lack of alternative adequate housing,
- Living in emergency or transitional housing.”
It is true that we don’t see these children on streets or wandering around at night but yes this is true that they do exist living in camps, small shelters, cars, motels, many families sharing a single apartment and there are hundred of thousands of families with homeless children. According to estimates of U.S. Department of Education more than 800,000 children and youth find themselves with no permanent place to call home for at least some of each year.
No matter how greater the number is of homeless children it is still their right to get proper public education as every other school-age youth living in nation. Federal law guarantees the homeless children a place in school, but ensuring that each student gains access to all of a school’s resources and services is an intimidating challenge for states, school districts, and families. Implementing the law requires education administrators at both the state and district levels to fine-tune their policies on everything from enrollment to transportation to immunizations and student nutrition.
Even though the pre-requisites and standards set by the school or education ministry are intentionally not designed to discourage the admission of homeless children in the school but still these standards and policies do hinders in the admission such as the requirements: proof of immunization, past school records, birth certificates, and district residency, keep homeless children out of the classroom.............
