SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Springfield Public Schools is reconsidering how it spends federal Title I funds, and officials plan to hire a full-time homeless liaison at a cost of $100,000 to $150,000 a year.

The district’s chief learning officer, Mike Dawson, told the News-Leader the district is required to set aside Title I funding for helping homeless students, which is typically between $100,000 and $150,000 a year, and plans to use the money to hire a full-time person.

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“Historically, these set aside funds have been used to support after-school tutoring, which mostly goes unused,” he wrote to the news site, adding that he horded some of the funds last year in anticipation of hiring someone for 2016-17.

He said the liaison’s role would be to “better identify students in transition, link students and families to community agencies, case manage 15-20 of our most at-rick students, and submit an application for the McKinney-Vento Homeless grant.”

The job was previously covered by the district’s manager of diversity and inclusion, Lawrence Anderson, but the new homeless liaison would be overseen by the director of counseling services, Rhonda Mammen.

The new homeless liaison position is among several changes district officials hope to implement with an anticipated $8.6 million in federal Title I funding for next school year that will also include extra academic help at three schools not covered last year – Delaware Elementary, Pittman Elementary and Twain Elementary – as well as a newly created “learning coach” position to work with students in four schools, the News-Leader reports.

“We are trying to provide more resources for schools and we know there are children in need at every school,” district Title I coordinator Brian Hubbard said. “We are trying to spread those resources out to help as many people as possible.”

Hubbard said the “vast majority” of Title I funding goes toward staff salaries, as well as an administrative team and teachers who conduct home visits.

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The homeless liaison position is mandated by the federal McKinney-Vento Education of Homeless Children and Youth Assistance Act, which also provides funding for states to serve homeless students. The act defines homeless children as “individuals who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence,” according to the State of Washington website.

Education Dive points out a recent report by Civic Enterprises and Heart Research Associates titled “Hidden in Plain Sight: Homeless Students in America’s Public Schools,” which shows 89 percent of school homeless liaisons fill the role along with other administrative duties, while the remaining are mostly full-timers.

Full-time liaisons like Anchorage School District’s Barbara Dexter help “students and families find shelters, coordinate transportation to and from school, fill out forms for public assistance, locate food pantries, and for older students, think about college,” according to the site.

“She figures out the barriers keeping students from full academic participation and works to remove them.”

The homeless liaison position has also become more difficult in recent years, according to the report, because of a flood of undocumented youth that now make up a larger share of the caseload.

According to the site:

The latest version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act made a handful of updates to the McKinney-Vento Act that will take effect Oct. 1. High school counselors will have to prepare and advise homeless youth about college and McKinney-Vento liaisons will be obligated to inform homeless students about their status as independents when it comes to federal financial aid for college. Schools will also have to report on the outcomes for homeless students as a subgroup and track their progress.