New School Year Status

Hi Jamie! I’m Sherry and I agree with Sabrina. I also have a process in place for this scenario. I send out emails to all school secretaries, food and nutrition director, and our technology specialist who completes cycle reports in mid-June notifying them of students who will be removed from MV status at the end of 24-25 for example based on either documentation that they have dropped, enrolled in another school or state, or have now established permanent residency at…. I have a form I use to log all students under MV that I began in 2014 and it is ongoing with Name, grade, student ID#, MV status (code), Unaccompanied Youth – Y or N, and Date certified by me as Liaison. So I pull the information from this form to make my new list of who should be removed at the end of a school year.

Then I make a new list from those whom I have contacted that are still MV and believe they will remain that way through the summer into the next school year. I call that my  List of students to remain on McKinney Vento status for the 25-26 school year (assuming they return when school starts) and send it out to all the secretaries, food and nutrition director, and the technology specialist doing cycle reports. This lets the schools check their records and ensure everything is correct.

When school began for 25-26, one of the first things I do is check if the students on my list came back and what their circumstances are now. If still homeless, they remain coded for 25-26 and I notify teachers that they have a student under MV status, share my contact info, and tell them to reach out as needed. Then I go through forms for the new year and identify and certify any new students who need to be put on the MV list for the year.

I run monthly reports, reconcile my numbers with the Food and Nutrition Director since she has the free/reduced lunch student list and we sign off together on our homeless and foster numbers right before time for the cycle report each time.

I give her a signed and dated list of my students under MV status for each cycle report.

Then at the end of the year I go through the same process.  Of course secretaries may have dropped a student during the year because they left, enrolled somewhere else etc. and that is noted on my form but they only get one list from me during the year  to remove students who have established permanent residency and one list of students to start the next year with.

In my file itself if a student drops during the year for whatever reason, I will make a notation to remove the student from MV status at the end of whatever school year we are in. So at the end of each year, I will have a folder of students removed in current year, and a folder of students to remain under MV status for the next year.

I use this same process with my foster students. No one in my district certifies students other than me. So when I identify and certify a student, I do 3 small things. I send out an email to the principal, asst. principal, counselor, secretary, food and nutrition director, and your Supt. or Asst. Supt. may or may not want to be included in this email. I have a form so every email says the same thing telling them to please enter Susie Q. Rider, 6th grade under MV status, code “s” (or whichever code is needed) certified by SB on 9/11/25. I follow that up with a certified letter on school letterhead that goes only to the school secretary and I cc the principal and myself asking the secretary to put a copy of the letter in the student’s school file.

My last step is to email the student’s teachers once a schedule has been put in eschool to inform they they have or will have a student enrolled under MV status, reminding them of FERPA law and to contact me with needs that arise during the year. I have a form email I use that says the same thing for everyone and I just put in the student name and grade, date certified etc. and send it out. I will add special notes if I need to. I put SENSITIVE in red on anything I send out for MV or foster students.

I know this is long but thought it might be helpful.