Since 2021, when more than $24 million in federal pandemic aid was allocated to help Pennsylvania students experiencing homelessness, researchers say moderate progress has been made to reach and support these kids.
But according to a new report from Research for Action, Pennsylvania still falls below the national average when it comes to identifying students experiencing homelessness in the first place.
“It's a well-known problem that many schools across the nation, across the state and in local communities are having a hard time accurately identifying students experiencing homelessness,” said David Lapp, Research for Action’s director of policy research.
Lapp and his team spotted the issue by comparing that state’s basic poverty and student homelessness rates, two figures that are heavily correlated.
But side-by-side, the most recent available data on student homelessness shows a lower rate than one would expect based on the state’s poverty numbers. Just 11.8% of school-aged children in poverty in Pennsylvania were identified as homeless during the 2021-2022 school year, compared to a national identification rate of 14.7%.
Researchers are using identification rates to understand the extent to which Pennsylvania students experiencing homelessness may be under-identified. The team found Pennsylvania ranked 30th out of 50 states in its identification of students experiencing homelessness, up from 45th out of 50 a decade ago.
While state data on the number of students identified as homeless in Allegheny County has increased in recent years, advocates and leaders say the true number of students affected still likely remains undercounted.
“We're making some progress, but there's obviously still a long way to go,” Lapp said.
Risking access to federal protections
The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act requires school districts nationwide to track the number of students experiencing homelessness, from those living doubled-up with friends and relatives to students living in hotels or campgrounds.
Lapp said the definition is “intentionally broad” to ensure that all students experiencing housing instability are entitled to certain rights and protections under federal law.
Homeless students who move have the right to remain in the school they last attended. If they are changing schools, they must be immediately enrolled, even if they do not have the records normally required for enrollment.
When school districts don’t properly or quickly identify students experiencing homelessness, families can face barriers to enrollment, attendance or educational success.
The Center for Public Integrity reported last year on several instances in which Pennsylvania children missed days, weeks or even months of classes because local school districts did not enroll them or arrange transportation to school during periods of housing instability.
Lapp said that while students may be protected as defined by McKinney-Vento, a lot of schools miss those students who don’t fit typical depictions of homelessness, meaning districts “aren't counting them in the way that they should.”
Frequent moves from school to school — often a reality for students experiencing homelessness — are also associated with lower school engagement, poorer grades, and a higher risk of dropping out of school.
According to Research for Action’s report, students experiencing homelessness in Pennsylvania also have lower four-year graduation rates and test scores, as well as higher rates of chronic absenteeism compared to their peers.
“We know that they're a bit of a bellwether for what is happening in all of our public school situations,” Lapp said. “Studying outcomes and studying opportunities of students experiencing homelessness tells us a lot about the general state of our system of public education.”
According to the report, 617 more students experiencing homelessness statewide also attended cyber charter schools during the 2022-2023 school year than in 2021-2022.
Lapp said while this increase in virtual school attendance may sound like a positive, the opportunities and outcomes for these students are questionable. A 2019 report on charter school outcomes commissioned by the Department of Education found that cyber charter schools had a consistent negative effect across nearly all student outcomes.
The 2019 report even went so far as to say each additional year a child spends at a cyber charter school has large negative impacts on test scores across all subject levels, and increases the probability of chronic absenteeism. A Stanford University study of Pennsylvania schools that same year reiterated those results.
“This may be a school of last resort, and it may indicate that students experiencing homelessness are having barriers to getting into school-district schools,” Lapp said.
“That is a red flag about whether or not we're doing a good job of serving those students.”
Schools with limited resources and outcomes
According to the most recent federal data available, more than 34,000 Pennsylvania students experienced homelessness during the 2021-2022 school year. 761 of those students were at Pittsburgh Public Schools, or 3.8% of the district’s total student body.
A state count for 2022-2023 found nearly 3,500 students in Allegheny County experienced homelessness that school year — a 12% jump from the year prior. Statewide, the number increased from a little over 40,000 students to nearly 47,000 in the same period.
In their new report, Lapp and his team mapped student homelessness counts onto the latest state education funding data to understand the resources available to these students.
Researchers found that student homelessness is more concentrated in the Pennsylvania school districts with the largest funding “adequacy gaps,” or shortfalls between actual funding and what the state has calculated as adequate funding.
“The large majority of students experiencing homelessness in Pennsylvania are currently enrolled in or attending under-resourced schools,” Lapp said. “Schools that the state itself has identified as inadequately funded.”
State lawmakers passed a budget this summer that attempts to close those adequacy gaps by funneling more than $500 million to the state’s poorest school districts. The new spending comes in response to a landmark court ruling that deemed the state’s school funding system “unconstitutional” for failing to provide students the resources they need to succeed.
Many of these districts have fewer teachers, administrators, and other staff, and they pay lower salaries compared to the state’s adequately funded districts.
According to Research for Action, the 135 school districts in Pennsylvania without any funding gap per student serve only 5,174 homeless students combined. Meanwhile, the 91 school districts with the largest funding gaps serve more than 11,280 students experiencing homelessness.
In Allegheny County, those districts include Sto-Rox, McKeesport and Baldwin-Whitehall.
'Beating the drumbeat'
In July, state leaders signed into law a bill that protects some of the federally guaranteed rights of students experiencing homelessness involved in residency disputes.
The legislation ensures that when a residency dispute occurs, a school district cannot remove the child in question from school until the dispute has been fully resolved.
The district’s liaison for homeless children and youth must also provide families involved in residency disputes with information regarding the educational rights of homeless children under federal law in their preferred language.
Rep. Jeanne McNeill (D-Lehigh County) told the Center for Public Integrity that too many students are left out of school for “far too long” during residency disputes. The legislation went into effect on Sept. 17.
As for Research for Action’s recommendations, Lapp said policymakers must first fix underlying funding inequities statewide.
“This will help all students, but [it] will really help students experiencing homelessness who are heavily concentrated in our most underfunded schools,” Lapp said.
From there, Lapp said educators must be constantly trained to recognize and identify students experiencing homelessness to ensure they are provided with the services to which they are entitled.
“And beating the drumbeat of the importance of accurately identifying students experiencing homelessness,” he said.
