Yenah Park P.

Interview Assignment

Hilda Lloyd is a part of the Jordan School District Equity and Compliance Team in the

homeless/migrant outreach position. She has been working with the Jordan School District for

30+ years and works with several esteemed programs to educate students and give them equal

opportunities. Lloyd is the head of the McKinney Vento program for the district, and as such has

been able to assist in several projects for students of all ages. Her goals are to help families and

students in the district become more stable by assisting them in the road to education. I chose to

interview Lloyd because I was interested to see how the McKinney program works and wanted

to get information from someone who works with the homeless youth in our district firsthand.

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

- introduce yourself and what you do

- what is the mckinney vento program?

- specific stats or numbers for the jordan school district?

- what made you want to go into this career?

- specific projects/experiences that were memorable?

- what is something unique about our district’s program?

- assumptions made about the homeless?

- what impacts does homelessness have on youth?

- have your experiences changed your viewpoints on the importance of education?

- what resources could a high school student use to learn more?

Yenah Park

Jackie Burr, Instructor

English 2010, Unit 3

April 26, 2021

Interview Reflection

Originally, I reached out to Sharon Jensen, the consultant of the Jordan School District

student support services department. Jensen is not specifically over homeless students and gave

me the email of Hilda Lloyd, who is the homeless/migrant outreach coordinator of the district.

The interview was held on April 24th over the phone. It was 22 minutes long, and was recorded

using the app Call Recorder. During the interview, I had my phone recording the call and was

using my laptop to keep track of my questions and Lloyd’s responses. After the interview ended,

I relistened and transcribed the interview. I only had time to ask her around six questions but her

answers overlapped with some of the other questions.

The McKinney Vento is a program that runs throughout every state. They work with

families and individuals to cover many areas of the homeless; this includes those living alone

under abandonment, runaways, domestic violence, those evicted from apartments, etc. Another

case that happens more frequently is when families can’t pay for their utilities so everything is

shut off. There is also the case of ‘couchsurfing’ where kids bounce between houses living with

caretakers, including grandparents, other relatives, or friends. These both qualify as ‘inadequate

housing’ and place them under McKinney’s program. Our district’s goal for these students is to

provide them with equal opportunities for education so that they are able to graduate. They want

these students to know that they are capable of success. They work with other districts for

students that move frequently, networking to get them enrolled as quickly as possible. They fill
out student residency forms and if they are high school students, they plan out their

credits/schedules so that they can graduate on time. Our district is currently assisting around

1700 homeless students. This number has been steadily increasing throughout the years. The

pandemic also made things very difficult when schools were shut down, making it harder to

know the needs of students.

One of the big resources that our district provides is the Principal’s Pantry. It was created

around seven years ago when the district noticed that there were several families raised by single

parents and students didn’t have food when they went home or for the weekends. There is a

pantry in every school, mostly aiding high school students. Communities are very generous and

donate several food items for the pantry. Another program that our district runs is the Christmas

for Kids where the district works to provide Christmas for middle school and high school

students. These older students are often not qualified for other programs so this has been a way

to meet their needs. Jordan School District networks with several different agencies and food

banks, as well as members of the community. When I asked Lloyd about what role the

community played in this organization, she said that from her years of experience, she has found

that they never lack resources because people are so willing to give. When people see the needs

of others they come together to provide things for others.

When asked about the different resources available to learn more, Lloyd recommended a

documentary called My Four Walls to encourage students to have a different perspective on the

lives of students. She informed me that she would drop this documentary off at our school for me

to use, and I plan on watching to increase my understanding and knowledge.