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Student Homeless Program Association

Student Homeless Program Association: WISEdata

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Homeless program association will indicate whether or not a student is homeless. Homeless students lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence and include students who:

  1. are sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason; are living in motels, hotels, or camping grounds due to the lack of alternative adequate accommodations; are living in emergency or transitional shelters; or are abandoned in hospitals;
  2. have a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings (within the meaning of section 103(a)(2)(C));
  3. are living in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, bus or train stations, or similar settings; and
  4. migratory children who qualify as homeless because the children are living in circumstances described in (1) through (3) above.

For more information about "fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence", see below. The definition of homeless status provided above is based on Section 725 (2) of McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, Subtitle VII-B, reauthorized by Title IX, Part A of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) (42 U.S.C. 11434A(2)). Students who meet the McKinney-Vento definition should be submitted with a homeless program association.

Homeless Status will be collected as a new program with two new program attribute fields of Homeless Primary Nighttime Residence and Homeless Unaccompanied Youth. The student Homeless Program Association record includes a Program Type of Homeless and Program Name of Education for Homeless Children and Youth. It will track if a student was homeless at any point during a given school year and the education of the homeless student.

  • Homeless Begin Date: When the Homeless program is submitted, you will be required to enter a Homeless Begin Date that identifies when the student first became homeless during the current school year in the school of current enrollment.
  • Homeless End Date: A Homeless End Date will be entered when the student is no longer identified as homeless. The Homeless End Date should also be within the current school year. The Homeless program association will link to and reference the student's school and student records. The End Date can be when the student is no longer homeless or at the end of the school year. The important point about the time period submitted for the homeless program association is that two homeless records cannot overlap within the same school during a given school year.

Every school a student attends while identified as homeless should submit the student as homeless; multiple schools will submit this data if the student has multiple enrollments during the year. If homeless information is submitted on a student, then the student's record will display Homeless values in the Student Details in WISEdata. 

USES: Homeless data will be used to meet disaggregated data requirements of the United States Department of Education (ED) using the Education Data Exchange Network (EDEN). At a minimum, disaggregated enrollment, dropout, graduation, and assessment data will be provided. The primary purpose of the data will be to determine the status of the education of homeless students in general and to evaluate the effectiveness of programs supported by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (under ESSA Title IX, Part A). This data element is required for all students in all WISEdata records regardless of whether or not the district receives McKinney-Vento grant funds.

 

FAQs, Details, and Points to Note

 

  1. Homelessness Questions: Questions about homeless status for WISEdata purposes should be answered based on this webpage and definitions provided by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. Please contact your district homeless liaison for clarification or further guidance before entering a student as homeless in WISEdata. A list of district homeless liaisons is available on the Department of Public Instruction's (DPI) 
    Education for Homeless Children and Youth website. If you have further questions regarding the definition of homeless status, please contact an EHCY state coordinator.
  2. School Enrollment Period: During each school term, each school enrollment period should be considered separately for purposes of submitting a student's homeless status to DPI. Note that if a student in school A is homeless at any point during school term X, continues at school A for school term X+1, but is not ever homeless during school term X+1, then the student is counted as homeless in school A during school term X and is not counted as homeless in school A during school term X+1.
  3. Reporting Homeless Data: When DPI submits district-level homeless data to the ED, all WISEdata records for every school in the district will be considered, and counts will be cumulative and unduplicated across the district. In other words, if during the school term a student transfers within the district from school A to school B to school C, and if the student was homeless while enrolled in school A and school B, but not homeless while enrolled in school C, then the student will be counted once as homeless on district level reports. (The student will also be counted as homeless on school-level reports for school A and school B if school-level reports are required.) See below for use cases.
  4. 2018-19 SY Changes for Homeless Data: Starting in the 2018-19 school year, Homeless Status will no longer be collected as a student characteristic that's submitted when true. Homeless Status will be collected as a new program as described above in the detailed section.
  5. Student Enrolled in Same School and Homeless for Entire School Year: The district in which the student is enrolled will submit the student Homeless Program Association, linking the student to the Education for Homeless Children and Youth program and the school where the student is enrolled. Submit the Begin Date as the date the student was first identified as homeless within the enrollment period; this may or may not be the enrollment start date. You would also enter a value for the Homeless Primary Nighttime Residence Type field and the Homeless Unaccompanied Youth field. Because the student is homeless for the entirety of the school year, you would not need to enter an End Date.
  6. Student Enrolled in Same School for Entire School Year but Homeless Temporarily: The district in which the student is enrolled will submit the student Homeless Program Association, linking the student to the Education for Homeless Children and Youth program and the school where the student is enrolled. Submit the Begin Date as the date the student was first identified as homeless within the enrollment period; this may or may not be the enrollment start date. You would also enter a value for the Homeless Primary Nighttime Residence Type field and the Homeless Unaccompanied Youth field. Because the student is homeless for a specified period of time, you need to update the student's record with a Homeless End Date when the student finds permanent residence, which can be any time during the enrollment period.
  7. Homeless Student Transfers Schools in Same District: The first school where the student is enrolled (School A) when the student is first identified as homeless will submit the student Homeless Program Association, linking the student to the Education for Homeless Children and Youth program and the school where the student is enrolled.
    1. When the student transfers to School B within the same district, School B then submits the student Homeless Program Association, linking the student to the Education for Homeless Children and Youth program and the school where the student is enrolled. School B will submit the Begin Date as the date the student enrolled, as the student has continued to be homeless. End Date is null for School B as well because the student has still not secured permanent residence.
    2. School A will submit the Begin Date as the date the student was first identified as homeless within the enrollment period; this may or may not be the enrollment start date. You would also enter a value for the Homeless Primary Nighttime Residence Type field and the Homeless Unaccompanied Youth field. School A leaves the End Date null because the student hasn't yet found permanent residence.
  8. Student Homeless at School A in District A but Not at School B After Inter-district Transfer: The first school where the student is enrolled (School A in District A) when the student is first identified as homeless will submit the student Homeless Program Association, linking the student to the Education for Homeless Children and Youth program and the school where the student is enrolled.
    • School A will submit the Begin Date as the date the student was first identified as homeless within the enrollment period; this may or may not be the enrollment start date. You would also enter a value for the Homeless Primary Nighttime Residence Type field and the Homeless Unaccompanied Youth field. School A submits the Homeless End Date as the date the student finds permanent residence; this date must be within the enrollment period.
    • School B in District B does not need to submit Homeless information data for the student because the student has not been identified as homeless during the enrollment period with School B.
  9. Student Homeless at School A but Not at School B After Intra-district Transfer: The first school where the student is enrolled (School A) when the student is first identified as homeless will submit the student Homeless Program Association, linking the student to the Education for Homeless Children and Youth program and the school where the student is enrolled.
    • School A will submit the Begin Date as the date the student was first identified as homeless within the enrollment period; this may or may not be the enrollment start date. You would also enter a value for the Homeless Primary Nighttime Residence Type field and the Homeless Unaccompanied Youth field. School A submits the Homeless End Date as the date the student finds permanent residence and must be within the enrollment period.
    • School B does not need to submit Homeless information data for the student because the student has not been identified as homeless during the enrollment period with School B.
  10. Homeless Student Transfers Districts: The first school where the student is enrolled (School A in District A) when the student is first identified as homeless will submit the student Homeless Program Association, linking the student to the Education for Homeless Children and Youth program and the school where the student is enrolled.
    • School A will submit the Begin Date as the date the student was first identified as homeless within the enrollment period; this may or may not be the enrollment start date. You would also enter a value for the Homeless Primary Nighttime Residence Type field and the Homeless Unaccompanied Youth field. School A leaves the End Date null because the student hasn't yet found permanent residence.
    • When the student transfers to School B within a different District B, School B then submits the student Homeless Program Association, linking the student to the Education for Homeless Children and Youth program and the school where the student is enrolled. School B will submit the Begin Date as the date the student enrolled, as the student has continued to be homeless. End Date is null for School B as well because the student has still not secured permanent residence.
  11. Homeless Status vs. Homeless Served: Homeless Served typically refers to the fact that a district has applied for and receives the McKinney-Vento subgrant. Homeless Served (as a recipient of the McKinney-Vento subgrant) counts are reported for children aged birth-5 (not in 5-year-old kindergarten) as part of the WISEgrants ESEA End of Year report. Previously there was a requirement to report Homeless Served information for children of all ages, but this is no longer required federally as of the 2016-17 school year. You can contact the Education for Homeless Children and Youth DPI consultant for more info on Homeless Served: see the bottom of the DPI Homeless page. Homeless Status is defined above and is submitted when districts identify a student as homeless.
  12. Migrant Status: See Migrant Status Data Collection and Reporting for more information about determining if a student is migratory. This term is defined by section 1309 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

 

See also:

Education of Homeless Children and Youth

 


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