Official Site of The State of New Jersey
Reducing Barriers for Students Experiencing Homelessness
Office of Supplemental Educational Programs
Students have experienced loss, illness, economic hardships, disrupted learning, trauma, and stress as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. While COVID-19 has touched all students, it has deepened pre-existing inequities facing:
- students of color,
- students from low-income backgrounds,
- multilingual learners,
- students with disabilities,
- lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, undesignated/non-binary, questioning, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) students,
- students experiencing homelessness, and
- other underserved students.
These challenges can have a direct impact on student learning and growth. The American Rescue Plan (ARP) provides states, districts, and schools with significant federal resources to implement evidence-based strategies to accelerate learning through integrated and targeted supports, instructional approaches, tutoring, and high-quality out-of-school time.
Promising Practices
1. Maximizing Federal Funds to Support Learning Acceleration
The Maximizing Federal Funds website provides school and school district leaders, Local Educational Agencies (LEAs), grant administrators, educators, and other stakeholders with information about how different federal funds may be used to meet their specific, identified needs. This resource is best used within LEA's cycle of continual improvement. On a continual basis, LEAs in collaboration with diverse stakeholders identify students' needs, particularly the needs of the most vulnerable and those most impacted by COVID-19. Once these needs are identified, the examples can provide ideas and inspiration about how to best use American Rescue Plan: Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ARP-ESSER) money and how to pair it with more sustainable Federal funding streams to have the most positive and lasting impacts on students and schools.
2. National Student Support Accelerator: A Tutoring Connection
Equitable and Effective Learning Acceleration: Using American Rescue Plan-Homeless Children and Youth (ARP-HCY) Funds to Build a High-Impact Tutoring Program
3. Institute on Community Integration
As schools continue to adapt their learning environments, maintaining connections to students has been challenging. Check & Connect recognizes that relationships are paramount and that students need the mentor’s support now more than ever. In response to this changing environment, the Check & Connect team has developed the Online Mentoring Guide. This guide offers strategies for fostering online relationships, planning conversations around school, and facilitating online interventions. (University of Minnesota)
Number of Homeless Children and Youth Enrolled in Public School
Note for people using screen readers or text-to-speech tools: The alt text for the graph includes the graph type and a high-level summary. All data from the graph is available on the data for Figure 1 page.
Source: National Center for Homeless Education (New Jersey Profile)