Charter & Lab Schools

The McKinney-Vento Act is a federal law that applies to all local educational agencies (LEAs) in the United States, including charter and lab schools. NCHEP works closely with charter and lab schools to ensure that their homeless liaisons are equipped to support students experiencing homelessness.

Data Information

Collecting and submitting data on students experiencing homelessness is a requirement under the McKinney-Vento Act. The following chart demonstrates the number of students that have been identified as experiencing homelessness in North Carolina charter and lab schools in previous school years.

School Year	Student Totals
2024-2025SY	1377
2023-2024SY	1160
2022-2023SY	955
2021-2022SY	656
2020-2021SY	546

Resources

Serving Homeless Children & Youth in Charter Schools

The National Center for Homeless Education (NCHE) created a brief that focuses on the implementation of the McKinney-Vento Act in charter schools.

Toolkit: How Charter Schools Can Support Students Experiencing Homelessness

SchoolHouse Connection developed a toolkit that explains the basic legal requirements of the McKinney Vento Act while highlighting a few examples of best practices from the charter school community.

Tools

Charter Needs Assessment Checklist

This tool allows homeless liaisons to identifying and evaluating the needs, gaps, and strengths within an LEA’s homeless education program.

Website Posting

Ensuring that parents, guardians, and unaccompanied homeless youth are informed of their rights under the McKinney-Vento Act and whom they should contact at their local school is an important responsibility of the homeless liaison. NCHEP has provided a template for LEA’s McKinney-Vento website posting to meet this requirement.