The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act can provide school stability for children and youths in the following categories:

• Sharing housing with others due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason.

• Living in a motel, hotel, trailer park or camping ground due to the lack of alternative adequate accommodations.

• Living in emergency or transitional shelters, or abandoned in a hospital.

• Having a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation.

• Living in a car, park, public space, abandoned building, substandard housing, bus or train station, or similar setting.

• "Migratory children" who are (or whose spouse or parents are) migratory agricultural workers, including migratory dairy workers or migratory fishermen, and who have moved from one district to another in the preceding 36 months, in order to obtain temporary or seasonal employment in agricultural or fishing work.

• "Unaccompanied homeless youth" including any child who is not in the physical custody of a parent or guardian. This includes youth who have run away from home, been thrown out of their home, been abandoned by parents or guardians, or separated from their parents for any other reason.

As an eligible student you have a right to:

• Receive a free, appropriate public education. 

• Enroll in a school immediately, even if lacking documents normally required for enrollment. 

• Enroll in school and attend classes while the school gathers needed documents. 

• Enroll in the local school or continue attending your school of origin (the school you attended when permanently housed or the school in which you were last enrolled), if that is your preference and is feasible. 

• Receive transportation to and from the school origin if you request this. 

• Receive education services comparable to those provided to other students, according to your needs as a student.

If you are in this situation, please contact Donald Stark, Fairview SD Homeless Liaison, at 814-474-2600, ext. 6210 or starkd@fairviewschools.org.

Please click here for more information from the Pennsylvania Department of Education regarding the education of homeless youth.

Please click here to view the Fairview School District Board policy on Homeless Students.