Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness Have the Right to a Free, Appropriate Public Education Presenter:


	Attendance is an obvious prerequisite to school success. Ensuring that students can get to school via safe and reliable transportation is critical. The McKinney-Vento Act requires state and local educational agencies to adopt policies and practices to ensure transportation is provided, at the request of the parent or guardian (or in the case of an unaccompanied youth, the liaison) to and from the school of origin if 1) within the same LEA, the LEA shall provide or arrange transportation, and 2) the LEA that remains the school of origin and the LEA in which the student now resides agree on a method to apportion responsibility and costs for providing transportation to the school of origin. If an agreement cannot be reached, the LEAs must share the cost and responsibility equally. The proceedings of the NCHE 2000 Transportation Symposium may provide some creative options for implementation of this requirement.

	State coordinators should look at the specific truancy policies for their states and identify possible barriers to attendance. They should also make the person who is responsible for enforcing the truancy rules aware of the liaison and encourage collaboration between the liaison and the attendance officers to ensure that children are attending school.