Homeless Children, Including Children Affected by Domestic Violence, Have Educational Rights

In order to learn and develop, all children need to feel safe and be safe at school. This is especially true for children who have suffered from the effects of domestic violence, including becoming homeless because of domestic violence. For these children, it is critical that their homelessness disrupt their education as little as possible. Understanding and enforcing homeless children’s educational and school choice rights are key factors in minimizing these disruptions. School departments have legal responsibilities to accord these rights to homeless children. The educational and school choice rights of homeless children are often referred to by the law that contains these rights, the "McKinney-Vento" law.

See this small poster about the rights of homeless children to go to school.

There is much that school officials, administrators, teachers, and other staff can do to insure that the educational and school choice rights of homeless children are provided. They can learn to identify homeless children; to know what to do even if the child does not have all required records and paperwork ordinarily needed for enrollment; how to deal with providing transportation; how to be sure that the child’s transportation is safe; how to carry out their responsibilities to parents who do not agree with administrators' decisions.

The Massachusetts legal services' Domestic Violence and School Safety Workgroup has produced a checklist for school personnel to assist them in carrying out their legal responsibilities to homeless children.