ROCHELLE — Erin Strouss has been fighting homelessness for a long time, and the May and Lincoln Elementary School counselor and district homeless liaison discussed the relationship between homelessness and childhood education at the Rochelle Elementary School District's monthly board meeting Tuesday night at Rochelle Middle School.

Strouss, who has been working in the district for 13 years and has served as the homeless liaison for roughly 10 years, said there are recent statistics that indicate there are as many as 1.6 million public school students in the nation who identify as homeless, with 59,014 coming from Illinois and roughly 55 in Rochelle alone.

"That directly impacts their educational success," Strouss said. "So what we do here in Rochelle is that every student who enrolls in our schools, including preschool, parents fill out short questionnaires regarding the living arrangements for the child... to help us ensure they get what they need."

What qualifies a student to be homeless, Strouss said, includes living in a location such as a campground, a vehicle, a domestic violence shelter and more. Students whose families "double up" with other families or who are forced to live outside of their home due to substandard housing, health hazards such as mold or incarcerations of parents or guardians, she said, also fall under the umbrella of homelessness.

"The main thing is that all of our students have the right to stay in their school of origin," she said. "Wherever they started or enrolled in school and began the school year, that is their school of origin and they have a right to stay in that school if it's in the best interest of that child."

The topic of homelessness has been noteworthy as of late, with the concept of a homeless shelter in Rochelle being discussed in detail at an elementary board meeting a few months ago. The Rochelle Planning and Zoning Commission voted in December to recommended the city council to grant a special use permit for a homeless shelter facility near Central School. 

"Our main goal is to keep the kids in school," Strouss said. "School is a safe place... We clean them, we dress them, we teach them, we make them happy and we just hope they come back the next day... When the kids can be connected with their community, the families tend to want to stay and be more involved."

"When people hear 'homeless' their first picture is... somebody out underneath an overpass or people sleeping in cardboard boxes," Superintendent Todd Prusator added. "But in the other cases Erin talked about that we see... The instability of not knowing where they're going to be the next day... That's a lot of stress and anxiety for kids to be dealing with, and part of what we're trying to do is ensure they can come to school and be safe and taken care of."