The McKinney-Vento Act and Children and Youth ... - State of Michigan

6. Implement procedures for schools and child welfare
agencies to share information in order to deliver
timely, effective services to children in care.
To provide the most appropriate services to youth in care, schools must know
who those youth are. At the same time, it is imperative that the privacy and
dignity of youth be preserved. Therefore, schools and child welfare agencies
must develop procedures to share the information necessary to ensure that
youth receive the services they need quickly, while not revealing details that
are private and unnecessary.
7. Strengthen and fully fund the McKinney-Vento Act
to provide appropriate services for all eligible youth.
The benefits that youth awaiting foster care placement receive under the
McKinney-Vento Act depend in large part upon what the Act itself provides.
The core protections that youth in care need are already present in the Act.
However, several additions would streamline the Act’s applicability to youth
in care.
First, since many different individuals and agencies may be involved in
deciding whether a youth attends the local school or the school of origin,
it would be helpful to establish clear criteria in the Act to make this
determination. Similarly, the various agencies involved with a youth may have
differing opinions as to where the youth should attend school. Therefore,
stronger and clearer dispute procedures are needed in the Act. Lastly,
homeless liaisons must be required to participate in training on the Act, and
states must conduct monitoring and oversight of school districts’ compliance,
to ensure that all eligible students are served appropriately.
In addition to such procedural issues, certain substantive improvements
in the Act are important for youth in care. These include streamlining
youth’s ability to participate immediately in all school activities, particularly
extracurricular activities, athletics, and school programs and activities with
deadlines or fees. Similarly, requiring schools to award youth partial credit
for coursework completed in other schools and to support credit recovery
activities is a critical support for youth in out-of-home care. Finally, it is
essential that the McKinney-Vento Act’s application to preschool-aged
children be clarified, so that young children in out-of-home care can enjoy
the Act’s protections for immediate enrollment and stability in preschool
programs.
Strategies for Improving Educational Outcomes through School Stability 57