OPUSD Homeless Education Support and Programs

Oak Park Unified School District believes that the identification of homeless students is critical to improving the educational outcomes of such students and ensuring that homeless students have access to the same free and appropriate public education provided for other students within the district.  The district shall provide homeless students with access to education and other services necessary for such students to meet the same challenging academic standards as other students.  

Homeless students are students who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence and include:

1. Students who are sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason, are living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to the lack of alternative adequate accommodations; are living in emergency or transitional shelters, or are abandoned in hospitals.

2. Students who have a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed ordinarily used as regular sleeping accommodation for human beings.

3. Students who live in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, bus or train stations, or similar settings.

4. Migratory children who qualify as homeless because they are living in conditions described in items #1 - 3 above.

Unaccompanied youth includes a homeless child or youth, not in the physical custody of a parent or guardian.

(CA Education Code 48859, USC 11434a)