Springfield district uses cabs to get homeless students to school on short notice

The Springfield school district contracted with a local cab company to provide rides — on short notice — to students who are homeless.

The move is a stopgap measure to ensure students who tend to move around a lot can still get to school.

As part of the contract, worth up to $10,000 this year, the Yellow Cab Company agreed to give the students top priority.

Bret Range, executive director of student and school services, said the cabs provide a short-term option while the district figures out a way to get them on a bus route.

"If they self-report or we find out this kiddo is struggling, there is going to be a window where transportation has to redo the route and sometimes it takes a week or two weeks to get a bus over to the kid," he said. "What the cab service does is fill that void."

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The federal McKinney-Vento Act requires districts, including Springfield's, to provide extra resources, including transportation, to students who are considered homeless because they lack a "fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence."

They meet the definition if they are "doubled up" with another family, stay in temporary shelters or sleep in cars, parks or tents. It also includes teens who "couch surf," moving between the homes of friends and acquaintances.

"This is a stressful event for a family — and, for sure, for a kid — and we know the safest place for them is a school because we're going to be able to provide them meals," Range said. "We view it as our responsibility to get them to school and keep them in school ... while we get the transportation piece worked out."

The district identified 1,609 students who qualified for services under McKinney-Vento during the 2018-19 year.

Under the federal law, students who are homeless qualify for protections and services, including:

• Immediate enrollment even if they lack the necessary paperwork
• Free school meals
• Free busing
• Access to health, counseling and other services offered at school
• Continued enrollment in their "home" or original school, even if the family moves to another attendance area in the district

The Springfield district operates a fleet of buses and scores of bus routes each morning and afternoon. However, since students who are homeless are allowed to remain in their original schools — which may or may not be close to where they are staying temporarily — adding them to an existing route can be a challenge.

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Lynn Schirk, who oversees the district's Office of Students in Transition, said the district sometimes has to get creative. Other options include providing passes to ride the buses operated by City Utilities or reimbursing families for fuel.

The district employs attendance advisers to make home visits to figure out ways to help students with chronic absenteeism. In a pinch, they have also been asked to pick up a student who is homeless and transport them to school.

"They are always there as a resource," Range said. "If we call for the cab and the cab can't get there, we'll still use the attendance adviser to help."

Range said the situation for students experiencing homelessness can change quickly and the district must be flexible.

"Transportation is going to get a bus out to them, but it may take a couple days," he said. "The cab service provides that Band-Aid for us to be able to get that kid to school and wait for the bus situation to catch up."

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Shairey Perkins, manager for the Yellow Cab Company, said the district calls them to pick up students frequently. "We've been hauling for Springfield Public Schools for at least two or three years."

Asked how often the district calls, Perkins said, "during the school year, probably three or four times a week."

The company is headquartered at Commercial Street and Benton Avenue and, under the contract terms, cab drivers permitted to pick up students are required to have the same license endorsement as school bus drivers.

"We always make them a top priority," she said.

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The district's willingness to call a cab for a student is not new, but the contract is. It was approved Tuesday by the school board.

Range said the written agreement allowed the district to create a line-item in the budget and make sure liability and other issues were spelled out.

"It's in these kids' best interest for us to do everything we can to remove roadblocks from them being in school," Range said.

"Every one of our principals wants those kids in school, and we are going to do everything we can to get them in school as quickly as possible."