Helping Students Most in Need During Unprecedented Times

Even though the IC (Infinite Campus) team deals with student information services on a daily basis, you may not know that we are also the department that serves the needs of our students in transitional housing, sometimes called Homeless students. While I (Phil Hintz) am the Director of Student Information Services, I am also the Homeless Liaison, a.k.a. McKinney-Vento Liaison for Barrington 220.  I wanted to bring this to your attention because we do have a homeless student population in the district if you were not aware. In these "unprecedented times" we are starting to become aware of more and more students and families who could use our help just to get by day to day. This is especially important as we think about and nurture the social-emotional learning needs of our students and what their life is like outside of the school day hours. 

That being said, I would like to ask all of our district staff to put the signs of homelessness and Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) needs on your radar as you interact with our students day to day, both remotely and in-person. This document can help you look for warning signs and provide tips for identifying homeless children and youth in your classrooms or around school. 

If you suspect that a student might fall into this category based on your observations or interactions with their parents, please let your building principal or social worker know what led you to believe that you have a student that could fall into the category of homelessness or needing additional resources. They can follow up on it and get in touch with me if necessary.

Since you are on the front lines for identifying our students of need and you #SeeTheStudent220 each day, we really need your eyes and ears to help us meet the needs of our students—even if they don't think they have a need themselves.  Please click here to make yourself familiar with some of the tell-tale signs that can help to identify our students in need. It could mean all the difference to that child and/or family. Since teachers are in the business of making a difference in children's lives, you are the perfect person to do this!