#Drunk bus driver in pa 2019 drivers#

But now they are doubled-up in Swissvale. “The family did live in the city and that’s where they went to school. Kellie Irwin, a Woodland Hills social worker, said she recently worked with the Pittsburgh district to enroll a homeless student from Pittsburgh Minadeo PreK-5 into a Woodland Hills elementary school. The situation is the same in the adjacent Woodland Hills School District. Homeless Pittsburgh students temporarily living outside the city often can’t get transportation back to Pittsburgh schools and students from other districts currently living in Pittsburgh aren’t always being transported to their home district. The AIU provides homeless services in a nine-county region of Southwestern Pennsylvania.ĭistricts experience the problem from both sides “We can tell the schools a million times you have to provide transportation but we can’t build a driver,” said Nicole Anderson, who coordinates homeless students services at the Allegheny Intermediate Unit. But most local districts are experiencing driver shortages – some so severe that they can’t always provide transportation for students within their districts. Under the provisions of the federal law, school districts are supposed to collaborate to provide transportation for homeless students between their districts. But the nonprofit and school officials worry about the negative effect a prolonged bus driver shortage will have on the education of homeless students. It also has a Mobile Learning Program, funded by the Richard King Mellon Foundation, that sends tutors to meet with students living outside of the shelter system. The Homeless Children’s Education Fund is trying to fill in academic gaps through its tutoring programs in shelters and in after-school programs. “In general, with most of the students we are seeing, they have fallen behind in terms of all academics,” Nykwest said. Those issues meant it took longer for them to get back into school. And during the pandemic, local homeless students “spent more time without devices and experienced internet issues at a much higher rate” than their peers, said Kaitlyn Nykwest HCEF’s afterschool and enrichment director. And while this disruption continues, national and local analyses have shown that students fell behind in reading and math during the pandemic.Įven before the pandemic, homeless students typically scored lower than other vulnerable student groups, including those who are economically disadvantaged. Department of Education, it takes homeless students four to six months to recover academically after switching schools. The lack of transportation means a number of homeless students have been forced to switch enrollment to the school districts where their temporary housing is located, a move long known to be disruptive to their education. The moves often take children outside of their regular school districts. But the majority are housed in temporary settings doubled up with family or friends after losing their permanent residences. Some local homeless students are living in shelters or motels. Data for the 2020-2021 will be posted by the state Department of Education later this year. The most recent data available shows there were 3,212 homeless students in Allegheny County in the 2019-2020 school year. Students are considered homeless if they lack “a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence,” under the McKinney-Vento Act. The Allegheny County Emergency Rental Assistance Program is set to expire in May. This comes at a time when advocates say homelessness is on the rise because of pandemic hardships, including job and housing losses, and the numbers are predicted to go even higher given the termination of eviction moratoriums and rental assistance programs. It’s definitely a very concerning and increasing problem,” said Brian Knight, manager of community engagement at the Homeless Children’s Education Fund.

#Drunk bus driver in pa 2019 drivers#

“Over and over we are hearing that there are not drivers to do the work of taking students from where they are now living to their original school district.