Pilot program looks to help homeless students succeed

It’s a chance to get money that can help students afford transportation, pay their families’ bills and offset some of the negative impact of homelessness on the education of high school students. Educators believe it’s a real opportunity for teenagers to focus on schoolwork and reach their goals to walk across the graduation stage.

Under a new state pilot program that launched this month, high school students experiencing homelessness will receive $500 monthly payments for meeting attendance and academic requirements. 

The New Mexico Public Education Department will enroll 330 students in grades 10–12 across 12 school districts and one charter school. The legislature funded the three-year pilot at $2.1 million annually. 

Participating students must maintain 92% monthly attendance, complete all schoolwork, attend three academic support sessions weekly and meet with counselors for wraparound services to qualify for payments.

“This program recognizes the real challenges homeless students face and gives them stability to graduate and pursue their dreams,” said Public Education Secretary Mariana D. Padilla.  

The program builds on a program tested in 2020 by New Mexico Appleseed, a child poverty nonprofit. Just 51% of the state’s homeless students had graduated the year before, but in the test group, 93%, 13 of 14 seniors, graduated.

State educators in New Mexico, which in 2023 had the highest child poverty rate in the nation and has about 10,000 homeless students, seek a broader reach. The initiative is the first of its kind, and proponents believe it could become a national model for improving academic outcomes for homeless students.

“A diploma changes everything — it's the difference between perpetuating poverty and breaking free from it,” said Jennifer Ramo, executive director of New Mexico Appleseed, which will provide technical assistance. “We're watching that transformation happen in real time.” 

The pilot targets urban, rural and tribal communities and aligns with equity efforts outlined in the Martinez/Yazzie Action Plan.

"LCPS has begun implementing the Guaranteed Payment for Attendance Program at Mayfield High School, a three-year pilot supporting McKinney-Vento (unhoused) students,” said Las Cruces Public Schools chief of educational equity and support programs, Robert Lozano. “Mayfield was selected based on its high number of identified students, with 30 students now enrolled. Participants receive $500 per month to help meet basic needs, along with academic and socio-emotional support to improve school stability and attendance."

Mayfield High and other participating schools will offer the pilot program to eligible sophomores, juniors and seniors who have been identified as homeless under the federal McKinney-Vento definition.

The funding comes with requirements that go beyond just attendance at school. There are regular check-ins with school officials, attending tutoring sessions, and training in the important skill of money management.

“The main purpose of the program is for them attend school and they have to take a financial literacy course as well,” Lozano said. “These are students who may live with somebody else, their family doesn't have a home and unfortunately, we do have some that are truly homeless. We received notification a few months ago that the state was looking for districts to implement and of course we agreed.”

The school district has partnered with Mountain Star Federal Credit Union to administer the debit cards the students receive as they participate and succeed at meeting attendance and other goals.

Lozano sees that financial concerns are a huge contributor to school absence and believes this program can provide an answer.

“Oftentimes, especially these students, if they're working, they offer them an extra shift. They're probably going to take the shift, right?” Lozano said. “Obviously, this is a great motivator for them.”

Lozano said the district was part of the Appleseed pilot in 2020, and though that was on a much smaller scale, it was successful.

“Maybe it was 10 students that we tried it out with,” he said. “That program had requirements for parents also, so they had to attend Zoom meetings and a lot of it was to build capacity for them to find jobs, to better themselves, to have knowledge of how the system works and where they could go get help with the ultimate goal of getting out of homelessness. At the end of the day, that's always our goal when we support these students, and of course, we believe that comes through education.”

The program joins with other New Mexico state efforts to support. It also recently became the first state to provide universal childcare to working parents.

Homeless children experience difficulty getting to or staying in school, which can affect their lives beyond graduation. The students are more likely to move from school to school and be chronically absent, leading to higher dropout rates and lower academic achievement, according to the information from the U.S. Department of Education.

Lozano says that there were obvious choices that had to be made with the limited funding that was available in the program.

“We have over 700 students, so there was not enough funding to go around for every family, so we decided to focus on a particular area or school that has historically had the most students that fit that category,” Lozano said. “That was Mayfield High School, so it just made sense for us to focus Mayfield High School.”

The state will collect data on participants’ attendance rates, graduation rates and academic outcomes. Officials will evaluate the results quarterly. State officials hope to expand the program statewide when the three years are up. Lozano shares that desire.

“We tried it on a smaller scale last time, so let's expand more to different parts of the state to see what long term impact it has on students. Of course, oftentimes with programs like this it takes years to see what the outcomes are for students. The purpose is to see the efficacy of it with the hope of finding a way to fund this permanently.”