The Valley Breeze: School officials unclear on lack of homeless grant

PAWTUCKET - School officials say they have been unable to determine why the local school district was again left out of a late October grant award to support local homeless students. Housing advocates recently estimated that there are 68 homeless students in Pawtucket currently.

Interim Supt. Cheryl McWilliams said administrators reached out to the Rhode Island Department of Education after an inquiry from The Breeze about the lack of a grant this year, but were still unclear on the reasoning.

McWilliams said the district filled out the application for the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act Education for Homeless Children and Youth grant in August. She theorized that the district might not have won the award because its percentage of homeless students is under 1 percent. Certainly “any homelessness isn't good,” she said, but some other districts do have higher percentages than that.

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