Winthrop Schools See Increase in Number of Homeless Students

By Adam Swift

As the school system has seen an overall increase in student population this year, it has also seen a jump in the number of homeless students.

At last week’s School Committee meeting, Superintendent of Schools Lisa Howard said the district enrollment stands at 1,967 students, its highest level in years.

“We have 42 students in the Winthrop population who are designated as homeless as of Jan. 1,” said Howard. “In the 21-22 school year, we had a total of nine.”

Howard said it is important for the School Committee and community to understand that homeless students have needs that need to be met by the district. Chief among those needs is transportation.

“There are lots of rules and regulations around students who become homeless, and the definition of homeless is probably not what the average person thinks,” said Howard. “Homeless can be if you are removed or left your place of residence, maybe for domestic violence purposes, maybe if there was a fire, maybe because you couldn’t pay the rent. Those students can be designated as homeless.”

Howard said the district has done a lot of outreach this year, and found that there were certain families that did not present or identify themselves as being homeless.

“For us to be able to provide them with whatever supports they need state-wise, community-wise, all the different groups in the community, Mi-Amore, our healthcare department, it’s important for us to know that,” said Howard. “You will see an increase in the price of transportation because we are obligated to drive them and pick them up where they are and bring them back to our school here in Winthrop, if this is where they started.”

If a student becomes homeless while in Winthrop but is housed somewhere else, the district is obligated to keep them safe in the Winthrop schools, if they so choose.

“We’ve also had a number of students that have come into the community who are doubling up with family members, so they don’t have a place of their own,” said Howard. “Those are also important to identify because of the needs of those families – I’m talking about clothing, I’m talking about beds … shampoo, toothpaste, backpacks, things like that. We have great resources in the community, so those types of things are not at a cost to the school.”

The social-emotional wellbeing of the students is something Howard said the district has to attend to.

“We’ve seen an increase in the need for our school adjustment counselors, we can never have enough, to help us with this particular population and making sure that we are really servicing them to make sure the kids, when they are in school and when they go home, they have food and they have security so when they are with us they are open to learning,” said Howard.

Howard said there has also been an increase in the number of foster care students in Winthrop this year.