Homeless Student Resources
The Quakertown Community School District believes that homeless youth should have access to free and appropriate public education and wishes to limit the barriers that homeless children may face. Our goal is to have the educational process continue as uninterrupted as possible while children are in homeless situations.
Homeless students are defined as individuals lacking a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence, which may include the following conditions:
- Sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or similar reasons.
- Living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to lack of alternative adequate accommodations.
- Living in an emergency, transitional, or domestic violence shelter.
- Abandoned in hospitals.
- Using public or private places not designed for or ordinarily used as regular sleeping accommodations for human beings, as a primary nighttime residence.
- Living in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, transportation stations, or similar settings.
- Living as migratory children in conditions described in previous examples.
- Living as run-away children, abandoned, or forced out of homes by parents/guardians or caretakers, or separated from parents/guardians for any other reason.
- Living as school-age parents/guardians in houses for school-age parents/guardians if they have no other living accommodations.
School Enrollment
Quakertown Community School District believes that homeless youth should have access to free and appropriate public education and wishes to limit the barriers that homeless children may face. Our goal is to have the educational process continue as uninterrupted as possible while children are in homeless situations. In accordance with the McKinney-Vento Action, the School Quakertown Community School District will immediately enroll the homeless child or unaccompanied youth in school, even if the child or youth lacks records normally required for enrollment, such as previous academic records, medical records, proof of residency or other documentation.
Please contact our Homeless Liaison, Kirsten Cochran at [email protected] or 215-529-2419.
Further information and details can be found in the below links
Basic Education Circular on Homelessness
PA Dept of Ed Homeless Education
Bucks County Resource Directory
Policy 251 - Students Experiencing Homelessness, Foster Care, and Other Educational Instability
Policy 200 - District Enrollment