As you prepare for the summer, we want to share information and resources to help you finish out the school year and plan for next year. This e-mail includes the following:
Updating McKinney-Vento Liaison Contact Information
Determining & Confirming McKinney-Vento Eligibility
Data Reporting – Deadline is August 20, 2021
Stimulus Funding & Students Experiencing Homelessness
Summer School
Important Benefits for Families
1. Updating McKinney-Vento Liaison Contact Information
Is someone else handling McKinney-Vento liaison responsibilities over the summer or going forward into next school year?
If so, please remember to update your school/district’s liaison contact information using our liaison update form.
2. Determining & Confirming McKinney-Vento Eligibility
Following Up
The end of the school year is the ideal time to check in with parents whose children are McKinney-Vento eligible (or youth themselves in the case of unaccompanied homeless youth) and determine whether their housing situation has changed since your designation. This will allow you to make appropriate arrangements for the upcoming year. McKinney-Vento Liaisons throughout the state have already started following up with families.
If you have not yet done so, there’s still time! Our template e-mail is designed to assist you with your outreach to confirm continued eligibility.
Identification of Students Experiencing Homelessness
Keep McKinney-Vento rights in mind when you reach out to families about returning to in-person learning. Remember, students who are sharing the housing of others due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or similar reason are covered and eligible for transportation up to 50 miles to/from their school of origin. This could include, for example, a student whose family temporarily moved in with relatives after a parent lost their employment.
Looking for next steps? Read more about determining McKinney-Vento eligibility and considerations for serving students experiencing homelessness amid school reopening.
3. Data Reporting – Deadline is August 20, 2021
As you know, the complete and correct collection of data on students in temporary housing is critical to ensure the appropriate allocation of resources to school districts. We recommend that you meet with your Data Coordinator this month to ensure that data on students who are homeless are being collected and reported correctly before the Data Warehouse’s August 20, 2021 deadline.
Reminder: In addition to the required codes for students identified as homeless, don’t forget to apply Program Service Code 0892 for any student served with Title I, Part A set-aside funds!
If you’d like help reviewing or understanding these data requirements, please review our data entry guide or watch our recorded webinar on Data Collection & Reporting, available in our webinar archive.
4. Stimulus Funding & Students Experiencing Homelessness
There are several sources of federal education funding coming to school districts and charter schools that can be used to support students experiencing homelessness. Read more about the funding. You can help make sure that the needs of students experiencing homelessness are addressed in your school district’s or charter school’s plan to use the federal funding. How?
Contact the administrators responsible for planning how the federal education funding will be used and set up a meeting to talk about the prevalence and needs of students experiencing homelessness in your school community.
Share data (you can find data about the number of students experiencing homelessness in your district here) and potential uses of this funding to support students and families experiencing homelessness.
If you are not sure where to begin, start by sharing this information with school officials.
5. Summer School
Summer school offers an opportunity for students to make up lost time, re-take failed courses, gain extra credits, and work toward graduation. Please check in with your students in temporary housing and their families regarding their Summer School plans and needs.
If your district will not be offering summer school but resident students can attend a neighboring district’s program for a fee, please ensure students experiencing homelessness can attend without cost. Click here to view last year’s Summer School memo.
6. Important Benefits for Families
Emergency Rental Assistance
Please share with families that New York State is accepting applications for the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP). The program helps with rent arrears (owed back rent). Undocumented families are eligible to apply.
Call Center: 844-NY1-RENT (844-691-7368)
New York State Website / New York City Website Child Tax Credit
Starting July 15, 2021, payments will automatically be made monthly from the IRS if families have filed taxes for tax year 2020 or tax year 2019. If families did not file, they can:
File their 2020 tax return for free if they earned $68,000 or less in NYC by contacting NYS Free Tax Prep, or made $57,000 or less in NYS by contacting a Volunteer Income Tax Assistance site.
If they aren’t required to file a tax return, use the Child Tax Credit Non-filer Sign-up Tool to provide info to the IRS for advance cash payments.
Emergency Broadband Benefit Program
This FCC program provides a temporary discount on monthly broadband (internet) bills for qualifying low-income households. Eligible households can receive up to $50/mo + 1-time device discount. As we shared previously, NYS-TEACHS will be moving to a new vendor on July 1. After 16 years, we here at Advocates for Children of New York will no longer be operating NYS-TEACHS. Please contact Melanie Faby (melanie.faby@nysed.gov) if you have any questions about the transition. We have deeply appreciated working with you over the years and admire all you do on behalf of children and youth experiencing homelessness. We will miss working with you. Be well and have a wonderful summer, NYS-TEACHS