Episode Details

Welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. On this episode of the Supercast, we learned about something our guests call a labor of love. We're talking about helping students in need as part of the McKinney Vento program. It is a federal program that exists to help students succeed in school, despite having no real place to call home, or for those students who may need just a little extra support, let's start by hearing from Hilda Lloyd who oversees the McKinney Vento program, and several amazing women who act as program liaisons for students in need. Thanks for being on the Supercast. Thank you for having us. Can you tell us for those who may not be familiar? What is McKinney Vento? First of all,

Hilda Lloyd:
Bento is a program that is designed to help children that have some type of hardship. My job is to help the schools to get these kids enrolled, immediately able to meet the criteria to graduate. We work with the elementary level middle school and high school level.

Anthony Godfrey:
Can you describe for those listening, how that set up in our district

Hilda Lloyd:
In the elementary level we have when they first come in or identify them as families that are not living in a home or in shelters, or if they're on their own living with grandparents due to circumstances, we have ladies there that provide services for them. Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
It's providing support to help them navigate school, given all of the difficulties that they're experiencing in life outside of school. Correct. How many people do we have helping our homeless students

Hilda Lloyd:
In our high schools? We have one in every school, but the new schools also with the middle schools and we have the elementary with the homeless liaisons there for the reason, if it's mostly title one schools, not everyone has it. We put them in there as the time comes, if the numbers are high so that we can meet the needs of those students.

Anthony Godfrey:
What misconceptions might people have about students who qualify for services under McKinney-Vento

Hilda Lloyd:
Families come in and they may not look a certain way, so they just don't reach out. Or sometimes the families don't realize this program even exist. So that's why it's so important to have the people that work under this program to kind of look and identify them as they come into the office and have women there that ask the right questions so they can explain to them that they could have help with this program that we have in the Jordan school district. And that's pretty much how we find the students that need this help.

Anthony Godfrey:
So asking the right questions as they come in, because it's not always obvious.

Hilda Lloyd:
Yes. And we also do a lot of training during the school year so that we can prepare the secretaries and the main office in which they are wonderful to work with. So they can actually call or notify who is over that program in their schools so that they can get help right away.

Anthony Godfrey:
When students have difficulty in their home life, they may not know where they're going to be staying, or they don't have food security. It makes it pretty tough to learn. Doesn't it? It does. How long have you been working with McKinney Vento?

Hilda Lloyd:
About 15, 16 years.

Anthony Godfrey:
I remember back a long ways and you've always been helping students. So we su