For families without stable housing, school attendance often goes by the wayside. Making sure kids don’t miss out on their rightful education is a priority for Patty New. As Registrar for the Sycamore Community School District in Cincinnati, Ohio, she helps ensure the district is living up to its obligations to students — including those experiencing homelessness.
Ensuring that unhoused children can attend public school isn’t just a moral obligation — it’s required by law. The McKinney-Vento Act protects the educational rights of children experiencing homelessness by ensuring they receive transportation and other support. Fulfilling this requirement often involves tracking down families that have moved without notifying the school district.
“While the number of unhoused families isn’t usually great, we devote a lot of time and effort to help ensure they receive the supports they need,” New explains. “Our number one goal is returning the children to school.”
A missing family
A recent case illustrates the challenge of achieving that goal. A family was evicted from their apartment in the middle of winter and was forced to find temporary housing. New and her colleagues connected the family with a community organization that was able to arrange housing in a hotel. However, the children’s school attendance was spotty.
“The mom was having difficulty getting to work and getting the kids to school, just struggling to balance everyday life,” New recalls, noting that the parent had an upcoming truancy court date. Then, in May, things took another turn.
“The building principal called to say the children had not been in school for nearly two weeks. They had made multiple attempts to contact the parent, even visiting the hotel where they were last living. But no one could locate them,” New explains.
“We heard through the grapevine that the family was living in their car. That was the lightbulb moment for me,” New recalls. “I thought if I could find their car, I could locate the family.”
Rapid location insight
New turned to Thomson Reuters CLEAR and its innovative License Plate Recognition (LPR) tool. It links nationwide location information, including surveillance camera data, with vehicle ownership data to accelerate investigations.
“I ran a CLEAR report to identify any vehicle registered to the parent and then searched LPR for the vehicle with that license plate number. I was able to see her car parked multiple nights in a row at the same hotel,” New says. With this information, the school district was able to re-establish contact with the family and provide transportation that enabled the children to finish out the school year.
New adds that, before using CLEAR, finding a family in this situation might take days or even weeks and involve hours of staff time — including time for a school resource officer (SRO) to try and track down the family. “You’re just throwing darts at that point,” she says.
The CLEAR advantage
Having the ability to locate a family quickly also offers economic advantages, according to Brad Lovell, Assistant Superintendent of Operations for Sycamore Community Schools. Accelerating residency investigations enables district staff to focus on their core responsibilities, saving time and money.
The information CLEAR provides also helps build trust with school administrators that the district office is performing due diligence in truancy cases.
New says the key is the quality of the information CLEAR provides. “My confidence in CLEAR is huge,” she says. That trust is especially important when making decisions to withdraw students who did not qualify for residency. “Now I can go back to the building secretaries, show them the evidence and they don’t tend to challenge it. That has really helped strengthen the relationship between the district office and the schools.”
In addition to investigations, New uses CLEAR for verifying residency district-wide, including spotting fraudulent leases. She also likes the ability to set alerts for changes in the residency of McKinney-Vento families. “I'm able to call and congratulate them on finding a house and let them know they can finish the school year, and then they will need to transition. That was a case that actually happened this year,” New explains.
While technology is important, New says she appreciates just as much the support she receives from her Thomson Reuters representative. “He’s been fantastic. Whenever there's something I need help figuring out, with just a phone call or an email I have an answer.”
Everyday Heroes: Patty New & Brad Lovell at their desk
Fulfilling the mission
“We're here for the kids. No matter what their background, when they walk through the door, they get an education equal to any other child here,” Lovell says. “Our goal is to ensure that the kids who are supposed to be here are here every school day.”
New echoes that sentiment. “I take kids very seriously. I can’t change things in their lives that I can’t control. I focus on the piece that I can do something about — making sure they're in school. And CLEAR helps me do that.”
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