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LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Before graduating in June, James Mouser was one of more than 30,000 homeless students in Kentucky, which has the nation's highest rate of student homelessness, according to a review of federal education data.
Nearly 5 percent of Kentucky's 685,167 students were classified as homeless in the 2012-13 school year, the latest year that homeless student totals are available for all 50 states, the Lexington Herald-Leader (http://bit.ly/1LDvPWo ) reported. Kentucky's rate of homeless students was more than double that of all surrounding states but West Virginia and Missouri.
Going to school ended up saving Mouser's life in April.
Mouser, then a senior at Northpoint Academy in Pike County, cut his hand while at school on a Friday. Unable to see a doctor because he has no car, he lanced his own hand over the weekend after it became infected. When he returned to school on Monday, his hand had ballooned.
Rick Branham, the coordinator for homeless students for Pike County Schools, saw Mouser's hand and immediately took him to the hospital. Mouser stayed there for a week with an IV hooked to his arm, delivering high-dose antibiotics that eventually rid his body of the blood poisoning caused by his own doctoring.
"The doctors said I could have died," said Mouser, 20.
Mouser has lived on and off with his mother since his father died of an aneurism when he was 13, but he spends most nights on someone else's couch, relying on extended family, friends and neighbors for food and shelter.
The number of homeless students in Kentucky has nearly doubled in less than six years, reaching a high of more than 35,000 students in the 2011-12 school year. In 2013-14, the number dropped slightly to a little more than 31,000. But that's still far more than the 17,716 homeless students recorded in 2006-07.
Under a definition by the U.S. Department of Education, children are considered homeless if they are living in a shelter, motel or campground, car, outside or with another family member due to loss of housing or economic hardship.
The number of homeless students has ballooned, but funding has not.
That has left school systems scrambling for donations, cobbling together private funds to help feed, clothe and educate students without permanent shelter.
Federal funding for homeless students in Kentucky has remained flat for the past five years at about $1 million, data from the state Department of Education shows. School systems apply for the funding — called a McKinney-Vento grant — through a competitive grant process.
Only seventeen of 172 Kentucky school systems receive the funding. But by law, school systems are required to provide services to homeless children, whether the districts receive the grant or not.
Although every district must designate a staff person as its homeless education coordinator, only four districts have full-time coordinators. Four other school districts are hiring full-time coordinators, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.
Homeless students often struggle academically, and they have a hard time finishing school.
On Kentucky's year-end test, the percentage of homeless students scoring proficient or distinguished in math and reading was 15 to 18 points lower than the student population as a whole in 2013-14.
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Information from: Lexington Herald-Leader, http://www.kentucky.com
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