Children left behind

Homeless families sue the DOE for failing to educate their children in accordance with federal law.

As a staff attorney for Honolulu-based Lawyers for Equal justice, William Durham has often served as guardian ad litem (guardian of legal interests) for children in the foster care system. He began noticing a disturbing pattern for some of his young charges. As kids moved from foster home to foster home, they kept having to change schools—sometimes four or five times in a single year—seriously damaging their efforts to get an education.

Durham did some research and found a 1987 federal law, called the McKinney-Vento Act, designed to prevent just such problems. The law requires that states provide all children, including homeless children, with equal access to a free and appropriate public education. Durham also discovered that the state of Hawaiʻi received $200,000 in federal funding last year to ensure the McKinney-Vento Act was followed.