This NCHE brief explains how the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act applies to unaccompanied youth displaced by disaster and how the Act can assist these students in accessing education and other needed support services.
Published Fall 2015
This NCHE publication provides readers with a window into the daily challenges and triumphs of the schools and students affected by August 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. In Their Own Words, in large part, is a first-person account of the hurricane’s effects on education on the Gulf Coast during the first weeks and months after landfall and since. It is the voices of the students and the school, district, and relief agency staff who were closest to the challenges that resulted from the hurricane.
Published October 2007
This NCHE brief reinforces the importance of ensuring that children and youth displaced by a disaster are attending school as quickly as possible after their displacement; explains key aspects of the McKinney-Vento Act, particularly as it relates to students affected by disasters; and provides strategies for a local educational agency (LEA) to prepare for a disaster that causes widespread homelessness, meet challenges during the disaster, and improve its response for the next occurrence.
Published December 2022
This NCHE brief explains the importance of school attendance for children and youth who have lost their homes due to a disaster; provides an overview of the federal law that guarantees educational rights of children and youth experiencing homelessness; offers strategies for increasing coordination and collaboration between relief agencies and local educational agencies (LEAs) and school districts before a disaster occurs, during a disaster, and after a disaster; and lists resources to assist relief agencies in supporting families displaced by disasters.
Published December 2022
This NCHE brief describes the challenges faced by youth on their own who have become homeless due to a disaster; explains basic provisions of the McKinney-Vento Act relevant to serving unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness; and provides strategies for local educational agencies (LEAs) and relief agencies to put into place to serve unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness before and after a disaster occurs.
Published December 2022
