Hundreds of Renton homeless students and their families could potentially benefit from a bill that’s currently working its way through the state Senate.
The Homeless Student Stability Act (HB 1682) seeks to provide direct financial support to school districts to allow them to provide new and increased levels of service to homeless students.
It passed in the state House of Representatives by a vote of 82 to 16 on March 6.
A report by Columbia Legal Services analyzing data for the last school year released by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction found a statewide high of 32,494 homeless students. The school districts surveyed were in eastern King and Snohomish counties and most saw the districts’ homeless populations increase during the past year, according to a press release.
The Renton School District has the highest population of students experiencing homelessness of the other districts surveyed, which were Bellevue, Index, Issaquah, Lake Washington, Monroe, Northshore, Riverview, Skykomish, Snohomish, Snoqualmie Valley and Sultan.
Renton’s homeless student population was 430 in the 2012 to 2013 school year and 439 last year. So far this year, there have been 390 cases of reported homelessness in the district and Renton School District officials expect it to increase before the year is over.
Jason Breaker is the designated district McKinney-Vento or Homeless Liaison. The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act was passed by the U.S. Federal Government to strengthen education support for students who find themselves and their families temporarily homeless.
Many of the homeless liaisons surveyed in Columbia Legal Services’ report could only spend about two hours a day on homeless services for their students, having to juggle other assignments. Breaker spends more than two hours a day providing services for homeless students, he said in an email.
“For example, I have spent most of the past two days on homeless services,” Breaker said. “Additionally, that does not account for my admin assistant’s time spent on OSPI reporting, doing intakes, processing expenditures for homeless services; and it does not account for our district transportation router’s time for arranging transportation for homeless students; and it does not account for my school staff that assist in the identification and case management of homeless students.”
Of Breaker’s different assignments for the district, he said, his role as homeless student education liaison takes priority and gets a large piece of his time. He feels that having additional funds for schools to have counselors at every level of education would be beneficial to all students.
“I will just say that I would like the state to have a funded mandate for school counselors in every school,” Breaker said. “The high school level is the only requirement in Washington. My belief is having school counselors in every school will not only help homeless students, but every student within the school.”
The new bill in the Senate (SB 5065) would allow a limited number of school districts to partner with community housing organizations that would provide housing for homeless students as opposed to transporting them to their home district. In 2014, school districts spent $18 million statewide transporting homeless students to and from school after they had entered homelessness, according to Columbia Legal Services.
The bill must pass out of the Senate K-12 and Early Education Committee and Senate Ways and Means Committee by April 7 to continue through the legislative process.
