Program Office: Student Achievement and School Accountability Programs

CFDA Number: 84.196
Program Type: Formula Grants
Also Known As: McKinney-Vento Education for Homeless Children and Youth Program

Formula grants are made to the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico based on each state’s share of Title I, Part A, funds. The outlying areas and the Bureau of Indian Affairs also receive funds. Among other things, the program supports an office for coordination of the education of homeless children and youths in each state, which gathers comprehensive information about homeless children and youths and the impediments they must overcome to regularly attend school. These grants also help SEAs ensure that homeless children, including preschoolers and youths, have equal access to free and appropriate public education (FAPE). States must review and revise laws and practices that impede such equal access. States are required to have an approved plan for addressing problems associated with the enrollment, attendance, and success of homeless children in school. States must make competitive subgrants to LEAs to facilitate the enrollment, attendance, and success in school of homeless children and youths. This includes addressing problems due to transportation needs, immunization and residency requirements, lack of birth certificates and school records, and guardianship issues.

With subgrant funds, LEAs offer such activities as coordination and collaboration with other local agencies to provide comprehensive services to homeless children and youths and their families. LEAs also offer expedited evaluations of the needs of homeless children to help them enroll in school, attend regularly, and achieve success.

States and school districts across the country are taking steps to address the needs of students who have been left homeless by Hurricane Katrina. We applaud their efforts and encourage them to review, as needed, the Department’s previously issued guidance on the McKinney-Vento Education for Homeless Children and Youth Program.

Each year, over 800,000 children and youth in the United States experience homelessness. Title VII-B of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act is intended to ensure that homelessness does not cause these children to be left behind in school.