In the drive to secure equality in education, the Miami-Dade County Public Schools — the nation’s fourth largest district — realized that the clock is ticking.
So, the locals and administrators took matters into their own hands and established a program that will narrow the academic disparities divided by financial deficiency in the midst of numerous families in South Florida.
Project UP-START is a district support program dedicated to providing additional support for students facing unstable housing. Introduced by M-DCPS over six years ago, over 6,000 underprivileged students are supported by the program.
“The program assists schools with the identification, enrollment and attendance of students in transition to help ensure their successful academic achievement. The core of the program is to prevent children and youth in transition from being stigmatized, separated, segregated, or isolated,” M-DCPS, Project UP-START declared in their official statement.
Homelessness is moderately common across the country— especially among the youth, despite America’s known prestige in wealth, welfare, and prosperity. The Children’s Defense Fund is an advocacy and research organization that has tracked data regarding underprivileged children over decades. During the 2017-18 school year, they counted over 1.5 million homeless students enrolled in public schools.
Student identification data collected by the UP-START program counted that nearly 18% of public-school students are rendered in shelters, 72% in doubled-up households, 5.2% living within public places, and 4.9% in motels/hotels from 2019-2020. It has become clear the extent to which home instability is a given in the South Floridian community.
Community resources for unhoused families have guided students to more fluid academic standings. From providing academic resources to servicing transportation, meals, case management, and even shelters, M-DCPS’s initiative has produced multiple success stories over the years, retelling the narratives of alumni who have flourished.
Additionally, the Department of Housing and Urban Development released recent counts from last year. On a single night in January 2021, more than 130,000 people faced sheltered homelessness in a family with at least one adult and one child under the age of 18.
“The number of sheltered people in families with children declined considerably between 2020 and 2021, while the number of sheltered individuals remained relatively flat…. Between 2020 and 2021, the reported emergency shelter and transitional housing inventory available for people experiencing homelessness remained relatively flat, but occupancy rates declined,” the report revealed.
A vast majority of students in this demographic often deal with shortages of school supplies, meals, and daily attendance.
School-aged children living inside district boundaries and in unstable housing, are, by default, eligible to receive assistance from the district. To apply, visit here.
