RSU 09 family engagement coordinator reports growing McKinney-Vento caseload; district expanding community partnerships

Amanda, the district’s family engagement and student support coordinator who also holds McKinney-Vento responsibilities, told the board she is currently working with roughly 58 students who qualify under McKinney-Vento homelessness protections, a number she said has risen since last year. Amanda described the work as a mix of case management, referrals and on-the-ground outreach in five elementary schools and at the middle and high school levels.

She said supports include assistance with housing, tutoring, school supplies, mental-health referrals and rapid-response items such as cribs. Amanda highlighted collaborations with local agencies—including Mission at East Ward and the Department of Human Services—and the Department of Education’s preventing-homelessness grant, which provides up to $750 per eligible student for district supports. She described a district referral workflow that collects electronic referrals and also relies on weekly, in-person community-connect meetings at each school.

Amanda outlined training plans for staff: regulated-classroom strategies to help teachers co-regulate students and a McKinney-Vento information session on Feb. 4 for anyone wanting to learn about the program’s requirements and resources. She said numbers routinely fluctuate and that the district will likely identify more eligible families as outreach continues.

Board members praised Amanda’s work and asked about overlap among school-level counts; Amanda said some families are counted at multiple schools when siblings attend different buildings, and that PowerSchool allows staff to correlate family records to reduce double-counting.