Homeless/Runaway Youth Education Approvals Processing and Reimbursement
School districts may seek reimbursement for the direct costs of the educating non-resident school age students enrolled in special education or regular education programs at school districts, BOCES, or private providers (two payment opportunities each year). Only homeless students who have elected to attend school in a district that is different from their school district of origin and who were last permanently housed in the state of New York are eligible to generate homeless tuition reimbursement.
STAC-202 (Designation Form)
The STAC-202 (designation form) serves two related, but distinct, purposes: it designates a student as temporarily housed and it may designate a school district as eligible to receive homeless tuition reimbursement from SED. Only designation forms identifying students who are eligible to generate additional state aid need to be submitted to SED—forms that identify ineligible homeless pupils should still be retained and filed by districts for their own records keeping purposes.
| NOTE: | Throughout the school year, the school district of attendance should continue to submit eligible designation forms for a homeless student to the STAC/Medicaid Unit. No later than six weeks after receipt, these forms are reviewed for accuracy and data entered by the STAC/Medicaid Unit into EFRT (STAC Online System). |
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If our Unit requires additional clarification on submitted designation forms or to resolve issues with conflicting records, we will contact the district’s currently listed McKinney-Vento liaison that is listed under NYS TEACHS.
DQHOM Screen—Homeless Eligibility List
The DQHOM screen, or homeless eligibility list, on EFRT is a tool available to designated districts of attendance and districts of origin. For a selected school year, this screen will generate a listing of all students whose homeless eligibility status began in any part of the selected year, or the years prior. It does not, however, offer districts a comprehensive listing of all eligible students for a given year.
- Designated district of attendance (educating – 9A)
The screen displays for the designated district of attendance a listing of all students who are eligible for homeless reimbursement for any part of the selected year and those students who have a designation from the prior year(s).
To capture all students that might generate additional state aid through the STAC process, districts are encouraged to toggle backwards several school years from the current year. This screen will assist a designated district of attendance in identifying those students who may be eligible for homeless reimbursement and may need to be STACed on the DSHOM—non-resident homeless approval—screen. - Designated district of origin [Last Permanently Housed Prior to Becoming Homeless] (origin - 7A)
The screen shows all the students for whom your district was identified as a school district of origin when the student transferred to a new district.
DSHOM Screen—Non-Resident Homeless Approval Request
This screen is used by the designated district of attendance to enter information for non-resident homeless approval requests. These requests cannot be submitted until the associated designation form has been entered by the STAC Unit. The designated district of attendance has a responsibility to add a Non-Resident Homeless Approval Request for reimbursement for every school year in which is student is eligible. Homeless eligibility status may be ongoing, but approval requests must be submitted annually. Step by step instructions for entering and amending DSHOM entries are available below:
Adding a Non-Resident Homeless Approval Request:
- Enter STAC ID number
- Enter the first three letters of Last Name
- Select the School Year in drop down
- Leave Record Number blank
- Click Inquire and choose Disability in the drop-down selection
- Enter Partial Name (District of Origin), hit Search, and select in drop down
- Choose Education Provider in drop down
- Click Get Ed Programs and choose education program in drop down
- Enter Start Date and End Date using the dates per designation form or the district education program dates
- Click Add
The EFRT online system has established rate and STAC codes for homeless education programs. The rate codes (8500, 8501, 8502, 8503, and 8510) denote placement type, whether that be regular/special education or BOCES/private, and the STAC codes identify grade level—“K” is K-6 and “L” is 7-12. If any of these codes are missing from the program dropdown on the DSHOM screen, school districts may request that they be added by the STAC Unit, as needed.
DVHOM Screen—Homeless/Runaway Youth Verification Screen
The designated school district of attendance is responsible for verifying all entered homeless education service approvals using the DVHOM screen on EFRT. Districts can begin verifying service approvals for ten-month placements (September—June) sometime during fall/winter, of the new school year. Only verified service approvals generate reimbursement.
Step by step instructions detailing the verification process are available to districts below:
- Select school year
- CSE District (Already prepopulated with LEA BEDS Code number)
- Select what approvals you would like to see— the view will populate with all DSHOM entries for that school year —Unverified, Verified, All Records.
- Click ‘Get Providers’
- Click ‘Get AVL’
- The view will populate with all submitted DSHOM entries for that selected school year.
- Click to place a ‘checkmark’ in each separate record—this is to ‘Verify’ that DSHOM entry is accurate
- Click ‘Submit’ to complete processing
- If the district has multiple ‘education providers’ entered the steps above will have to be repeated to ‘verify’ all records.
- Approved NRT rate populates when verification submitted.
Statute of Limitations — Section 3604(5) of Education Law gives the designated district of attendance one year from the end of the school year services were rendered to verify these approval requests. That is, a district would have until June 30, 2024, to verify a service approval from the 2022/2023 school year.
Notify STAC Unit When Eligibility Ends
The designation form may be submitted with Item 10 (Date Placed in Permanent Housing) left blank to create open-ended reimbursement eligibility.
The list of eligibilities should be monitored periodically (DQHOM), and the most recent designation form resubmitted to the STAC Unit with an end date when:
- student has found permanent housing;
- student has graduated; or,
- another district is providing educational services (designated district of attendance).
Failure to report end of eligibility may interfere with your district, or another district, being able to file a STAC request for other available aid.
Dispute Resolution
The district of origin should contact the STAC Unit if they do not think they are the last district where a homeless student was permanently housed, and thus do not have fiscal responsibility for child’s education. The STAC unit will verify that all information on the designation form was entered correctly into EFRT.
If necessary, the designated district of attendance M-V liaison that submitted the form should reach out to other listed district’s MV liaison to ask if they can confirm the content submitted to SED.
If a district requests further review of their responsibility, or resolution of a dispute on the data in a submitted designation form, the district should reach out to M-V policy contacts: NYS-TEACHS or the State Homeless Program Coordinator.
Link to Dispute Resolution/Appeal Process
Payments
The STAC/Medicaid Unit processing of homeless reimbursement claims is limited to two fiscal actions:
- Assessing the chargeback (basic contribution) to the school district of origin; and
- Approving the education cost reimbursement to the designated district of attendance.
Additional Resources:
NYS-TEACHS provides technical assistance on homeless education issues. Including training, one-on-one help via the info-line, and information about policies, forms, and procedures.