The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act ensures homeless children and youth have equal access to the same free and appropriate public education, including a public preschool education, as provided to other children and youths. 

Homeless students are defined as lacking a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence, including:

1. Sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or similar reason;

2. Living in motels, hotels, trailer parks or camping grounds due to the lack of alternative adequate accommodations;

3. Living in emergency or transitional shelters;

4. Being abandoned in hospitals;

5. Living in public or private places not designed for or ordinarily used as regular sleeping accommodations for human beings;

6. Living in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, transportation stations or similar settings; and

7. Migratory children living in conditions described in the previous examples.

The Harvard Public Schools Homeless Liaison is Michelle DellaValle. 

For questions regarding homeless students’ rights and services, please contact her at:

mdellavalle@psharvard.org

(978)456-4143 

For more information about the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act or Educational Stability, please visit 

McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act - Student and Family Support (SFS)

Educational Stability - Student and Family Support (SFS)