27,000 homeless students in Washington state
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
There are 27,000 homeless students in Washington state.
The reasons are varied: job loss. Unforeseen illness. Increasing housing costs. Foreclosures.
The result is the same: homeless students.
According to numbers released this past week by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, 27,390 students were reported as homeless in the 2011-12 school year. That number is up 5.1 percent from 2010-11 and up 46.7 percent from 2007-08.
Collecting and reporting homeless numbers is a requirement of the federal McKinney- Vento Act, which applies to all homeless children and youth and ensures them a free education even if they have no home.
Districts cite many reasons for the increase. The overall job market is still struggling, in addition to local economic factors, such as the closing of a paper mill in Everett and the decline of the logging industry in Shelton and elsewhere. More students are living on their own. And funding for services that help prevent homelessness is being cut.
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1 comments:
"up 46.7 percent from 2007-08". In other words, the homeless student population has risen by almost half since Obama took office. The school lunch program arose in response to student hunger. Can state run K-12 boarding schools (with 24/7 indoctrination of course) be far off? Goodnight you Princes of Washington, You Kings of the Pacific Northwest.
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