These days, we all know of homeless children in our schools. However, you may not know about federal funds available to help your district find, document, and track the children who don’t fall into the traditional family household scenario.

There are many different categories of homelessness.

Homelessness means (National Center for Homeless Education):

1. individuals who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence.
2. children and youths who are sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason; are living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to the lack of alternative adequate accommodations; are living in emergency or transitional shelters; are abandoned in hospitals; or are awaiting foster care placement;
3. children and youths who have a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings…
4. children and youths who are living in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, bus or train stations, or similar settings; and
5. migratory children who qualify as homeless because of the circumstances listed above.

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I’ve heard people say, “libraries are dead”. They scoff and say, “I can look up anything I want on the Internet, and I can download many books for free.”

School libraries will never be dead. It’s not just about checking out books to kids on Tuesday in 4th period. Your Library Media Specialist is certified as a teacher as well as a librarian. Many people don’t know that. A good school library is a center for lifelong learning, and there has never been a more important time for the library to thrive. How will students know how to sort through resources to find the ones that are useful and true? Library Media Specialists are specially trained to teach kids how to use the Internet in a useful and responsible way.

The best way to approach a grant for libraries is to link its programs and services to curriculum and show that this facility is attached at the hip to the entire school community. Your library is the place where teachers will bring their students to find reference material and literature to match their subject area. If  you have after school programs to support the areas of the curriculum that need improvement, build off those programs in the library. Make the library the hub of activity for special programs, including professional development. If you think library, you’ll be guided to its physical needs very quickly.

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