10A | THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2019 | COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL
Youth
from A1
to employ Jade Chamness,
the McKinney-Vento liai-
son for the district. Cham-
ness works to break down
barriers between youths
and their pathway to school
success.
Previously, the district
had contracted the posi-
tion out, but created a dis-
trict position for the 2017-
18 school year. Since then,
Chamness has doubled her
work hours, enabling her to
increase effectiveness and
provide more services.
Through the program,
students can achieve im-
mediate enrollment even if
they lack documentation.
“So, we can get them into
the system and start get-
ting some supports in place
right away while we’re
completing our records re-
quests and doing whatever
we need to do,” said Cham-
ness.
Once receiving a referral,
Chamness sits with the re-
ferred youth to determine
their needs, drawing on an
array of solutions to fit the
student’s particular situa-
tion.
Chamness collaborates
with other agencies in the
area such as Looking Glass
and South Lane Mental
Health and makes referrals
to groups that help kids get
their first jobs.
Other
services
aid
youths with getting food
stamps, health care or even
put on an affordable hous-
ing wait list for when they
turn 18. The program also
helps break down financial
barriers to enrollment by
waiving fees.
In some cases, students
may move outside the dis-
trict. The McKinney-Vento
program maintains student
stability by offering trans-
portation for those stu-
dents.
Providing
transpor-
tation options is a huge
leverage point for the
school district in creating
a “school of origin” — the
school that a child or youth
attended when permanent-
ly housed or the school in
which the child or youth
was last enrolled.
Establishing this consis-
tency is one key element
in increasing a student’s
chance of success.
“Many times, students
are living in a variety of
spots across the school year
— not just one place — so
our transportation depart-
ment is incredibly respon-
sive,” said Hamilton.
Community
involve-
ment has also been a fea-
ture of the program. Last
year, Chamness started a
community responder pro-
gram, inviting people in the
community to sign up and
receive alerts when food or
clothing needs arise.
“That has been so suc-
cessful,” said Chamness.
“The community has been
amazing with supporting
our McKinney-Vento stu-
dents.”
Last month Goodwill
agreed to partner with
the program by providing
gift cards for students for
school clothing.
“We’re absolutely elated
about that because it really
helps us stretch our budget
and meet more needs,” said
Chamness.
The Oregon of Depart-
ment of Human Services
self-sufficiency office has
also collaborated to update
the Supplemental Nutri-
tional Assistance Program
(commonly known as
SNAP) intake process to
accommodate unaccompa-
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to help
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nied youth.
“We get them in for their
food stamp interviews re-
ally quickly and it’s been
going so well,” said Cham-
ness. “It’s a really exciting
win.”
A number of living con-
ditions may qualify youths
for assistance, such as living
in accommodations which
have no water or electricity,
living in a motel or hotel,
or staying with friends or
family due to hardship.
State of Homelessness
The past school year
saw a marked increase in
homeless youth who ben-
efited from the program
according to data present-
ed to the SLSD board by
Chamness.
While there were 138
total McKinney-Vento stu-
dents in SLSD during the
2017-18 school year, that
number saw a 48.5 per-
cent increase to 205 for the
2018-19 school year.
Chamness chalks the
larger numbers up to the
increase in employment
hours.
“As a result of that in-
crease, I’ve been able to
streamline our referral pro-
cess and identify more stu-
dents than what were able
to be identified in previous
years,” she said. “It looks
like there’s a huge increase
in homeless students, but
that’s actually not the case
— we just have more ca-
pacity to identify students.”
Still, the problem re-
mains pervasive through-
out the state. According
to a report by the Oregon
Department of Education
(ODE), roughly 3.75 per-
cent of K-12 students en-
rolled were determined to
be unhoused during the
2017-18 year, for a total of
21,756 youth. While the
ODE’s report stated that
counts of homeless stu-
dents in high-rent districts
were dropping, many rural
districts have been seeing
increases due to families
seeking more affordable
housing.
Among SLSD schools,
Cottage Grove High School
topped the list at 73 McK-
inney-Vento students fol-
lowed by Bohemia Elemen-
tary School at 36, Kennedy
Alternative High School at
31, Lincoln Middle School
at 30 and Harrison Ele-
mentary School at 24.
While data from ODE
shows that homeless youth
tend to underperform in
language arts, math and
science compared to their
peers, efforts such as those
by the McKinney-Vento
program have worked to
decrease the achievement
gap. Results on Oregon
State Achievement tests
have shown a gradual in-
crease in the percent of
homeless students meeting
state standards.
In finding long-term
solutions for students and
their families, establish-
ing consistency in housing
ranks highly among them.
“There isn’t enough
housing that meets the Sec-
tion 8 criteria,” said Cham-
ness, referring to the feder-
al rental housing assistance
program. “So, families can
get Section 8 vouchers and
they can’t find a place to
live here.”
While some housing
options for youths exist
in Eugene such as Look-
ing Glass’ Station 7 and St.
Vincent De Paul’s Youth
House, such options do not
exist in Cottage Grove and
many unhoused students
bounce between others’
houses, cars or tents.
Food insecurity is also
an issue.
“It would be helpful if
there were more oppor-
tunities for families to ac-
cess food,” said Chamness.
“We’ve got Cottage Grove
High School, Al Kennedy
and Lincoln Middle that
are all interested in starting
food pantries, which is so
exciting.”
If such a program takes
off, the district plans to
negotiate with students to
find the best distribution
methods.
Parents can sometimes
be another barrier.
“To a certain degree, par-
ents have to let us know,”
said Hamilton. “If a parent
doesn’t let us know about
their situation, we really
can’t help, though we want
to.
“We’ve been able to make
more contact with families.
And that’s the most import-
ant thing — helping fam-
ilies connect to services,
helping families know that
they’re welcome to be at
school, helping families to
figure out what we can do
to help them through.”
Ongoing discussion of
how to spend money from
the Student Investment
Account, state funding
through the Student Suc-
cess Act, may aid the dis-
trict’s efforts in this further.
“If that’s the direction
that the community would
like to go, we’d like to lever-
age some of those monies
to help students experi-
encing homelessness,” said
Hamilton.
Hamilton envisions ex-
tra programs such as after-
school gatherings with
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