Homeless students in school district

IOLA-SCANDINAVIA – Pupil services were on hand at the March 10 Iola-Scandinavia School Board meeting to discuss homelessness and how it is addressed in the district.
Kimberlisa Przychocki, the director of pupil services and special education, led the presentation to the board along with Megan Driebel, the school counselor.
Przychocki said that less than one percent of the students in the school would qualify as homeless if the protocol to recognize homelessness is followed.
They began with what measures they use to determine if a student is homeless which can be any one of the following or a combination of them, including lack of fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence, such as at places like hotels or motels, any public or private places that is not designated for residency.
Some of the causes of homelessness could be the lack of affordable housing, poverty, health concerns, lack of health insurance, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence, natural disasters, abuse, neglect and family dysfunction.

“The reason we bring this to your attention is it’s really a heartstring issue,” said Przychocki. “Somebody’s coming in and they’re having family problems. They may be living with an aunt or uncle, and we need to decide are they homeless, are they going to get some school supports and county supports or not?”
Identifying homelessness is not always cut and dry, Przychocki said. It’s not as simple as yes, they are homeless or no, they are not.
Przychocki said once a student is annotated as homeless in their system, they stay in the system as such for the remainder of the year, even if they were to find fixed and stable housing.
Chris Nelson, the Iola-Scandinavia district administrator, said statewide homelessness amongst students is widely underreported.
Nelson said there was an uptick on reported cases of homelessness during Covid because as staff were delivering things to students they were able to identify more students that were lacking sufficient housing.
“We have information in the entryways of each school, on the district website, the public notice of educational rights, those have to be posted,” said Driebel. “So we do what we can on our end, but a lot of it just comes down to word of mouth, and people letting us know and then us checking in.”