Background: The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) is the primary agency charged with overseeing K-12 public education in Washington State. OSPI works with the state’s 295 school districts.

OSPI has a brochure for parents posted on its website that explains the educational rights of children and youth experiencing homelessness and informs parents about ways in which they can support their children's education during times of homelessness. The brochure was created by the National Center for Homeless Education.

According to OSPI, Washington school districts reported a total of 27,390 homeless students enrolled in school during the 2011-12 school year.

Summary of Bill: By December 1, 2014, and every even-numbered year thereafter, OSPI must report to the Governor and the Legislature the following data regarding homeless students:

the number of homeless students enrolled in public schools;
the number of students participating in a certain learning assistance program, the highly capable program, and the running start program; and
the academic performance and educational outcomes of homeless students, including but not limited to the following performance and educational outcomes:
1. student scores on the statewide administered academic assessments;
2. English language proficiency;
3. dropout rates;
4. four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate;
5. five-year adjusted cohort graduation rate;
6. absenteeism rates;
7. truancy rates, if available; and
8. suspension and expulsion data.

This reported data must include state and district-level information and must be disaggregated by at least the following subgroups of students: White, Black, Hispanic, American Indian/Alaskan Native, Asian, Pacific Islander/Hawaiian Native, low income, transitional bilingual, migrant, special education, and gender.

By July 1, 2014, OSPI, in collaboration with experts from community organizations on homelessness and homeless education policy, must develop or acquire a short video that provides information on how to identify signs that indicate a student may be homeless, how to provide services and support to homeless students, and why this identification and support is critical to student success. The video must be posted on OSPI's website.

By July 1, 2014, OSPI must adopt and distribute to each school district, best practices for choosing and training school district-designated homeless student liaisons.

Each school district must strongly encourage:

all school staff to annually review the video posted on OSPI's website on how to identify signs that indicate a student may be homeless, how to provide services and support to homeless students, and why this identification and support is critical to student success to ensure that homeless students are appropriately identified and supported; and
every district-designated homeless student liaison to attend trainings provided by the state to ensure that homeless children and youth are identified and served.

Each school district must provide a parent brochure to all students at the beginning of the school year or at enrollment of the student that provides information about services and support for homeless students. School districts may use the parent brochure that is posted on OSPI's website.

Each school district must account for the educational progress of each of its students. To achieve this, school districts must report annually to OSPI on a number of issues, including but not limited to dropout rates for student populations in each of the grades 7–12 by homeless status.

Staff Summary of Public Testimony: PRO: Homeless students should get the services they deserve. There are over 27,000 homeless students in Washington schools. We need to close the opportunity and achievement gap. We need to identify patterns to see where we are helping and where we are failing homeless students. Many school staff do not know the signs of homelessness. A quick video would help to raise awareness. Families need to know what resources are available to them. Early intervention is important for homeless students. Homelessness is on the rise. Most homeless liaisons also have other duties or jobs, so the resources in this bill are very important. Homelessness leads to poor attendance. In the Redmond area, there were a lot of students asking for help related to homelessness. Kids need a caring adult in schools. Homelessness can manifest in several ways. Each time a student moves, they miss four to six months of progress in school. In Tukwila, 11 percent of students are homeless. Tukwila spends about $350,000 a year on homeless student services. That money comes out of local levy funds. I am homeless because my house burnt down, my mother has substance abuse issues, and my father died when I was 16 years old. The homeless liaison helped me get resources and now I am going to college. Homeless students are nine times more likely to repeat a grade. Teachers would benefit from a bill like this. We need to track this data and raise awareness at schools. We support this bill. We need to track these students. We need to be aware of how OSPI collects this data so that we get a detailed picture of how many students are homeless.