Skip to main content
menu close

Education for Homeless Children and Youth Procedures Manual

The Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District has developed a comprehensive manual to support Education for Homeless Children and Youth.  It provides a rich set of resources for other districts working with families experiencing homelessness, so we have included key elements in this Building Brighter Futures Toolkit:

Cotati-Rohnert Park USD Board Policies and Procedures

School-site McKinney Vento Identification Process
Forms and Parent/Guardian Information/Communications

Staff Training Materials and Tools

McKinney Vento Service Provision Tools
Immediate Enrollment 

Minimum Credit Requirements

Transportation

Free-Reduced Lunch 

While all students in California schools were made eligible to receive free-reduced lunch as part of Covid era stability efforts, that may not always be the case. The school site/district process for collecting residence information and appropriately identifying students who are living in a residence category that falls within McKinney Vento definitions is a trigger for youth to qualify for free-reduced lunch. Understanding this, districts should consider:

  • How information collected from residency surveys/questionnaires is documented, and whether it is accessible to the Child Nutrition Department.
  • How Free-reduced meal applications are collected and whether that information is accessible to the district McKinney Vento liaison and other staff supporting families with accessing resources.
  • Having a process in place to identify and resolve discrepancies and verify that students who might qualify have been identified and are receiving meals.  

Access to Extracurricular Activities

Best Interest - School of Origin Decision Making

Procedures related to student data system tracking of youth remaining in school of origin but temporarily without housing in CRPUSD. 

Parent Engagement

  • Example Presentations, Power Points, Handouts
  • Sample Calendar of Events (school sites??, District-wide??)
  • Best Practices 

Community Partner Collaboration (Can we get some of these items from Matt or Rocky?)

McKinney Vento Annual Staff Training

  • Professional Development Tracking Tools
  • Staff Training Calendar
  • Training Materials (Powerpoint or other video/slide format)
  • Training Handouts

 Local Family Resources

  • Sample list of providers in areas such as food/nutrition, housing, legal aid, clothing, household goods, haircuts, employment resources, counseling resources, etc.

District Demographic Data

  • Portrait of Sonoma: The Portrait of Sonoma County 2021 Update revises key measurements of health, wealth and education in Sonoma County and compares these data across race, ethnicity, gender and geography, giving Sonoma County a detailed picture of where preventable disparities persist in the county. The new study updates the groundbreaking 2014 Portrait of Sonoma County, which shifted our community’s understanding of what determines well-being in Sonoma County and how conditions vary in individual neighborhoods.
  • CRPUSD Enrollment Data
  • CRPUSD Academic Progress and Graduation Data

 Sonoma County Annual Point in Time (PIT) Homeless Count Tools