By Paige Cornwell

The Seattle Times

Washington has one of the highest levels of homeless students in the nation. And in a three-year span, when the number of homeless students in Washington grew by 30 percent, the amount of federal funding provided to help those students only increased by 8 percent.

Those findings are part of an annual report by the Institute for Children, Poverty and Homelessness (ICPH), which analyzed each state’s homeless-student population. Though the data is from the 2014-15 school year, it provides a snapshot into where homeless students live and how they perform compared with their classmates.

Data from Washington show that this state’s homeless-student population continues to grow. In the 2015-16 school year, nearly 40,000 students were homeless, according to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. In 2014-15, it was about 35,500.

“We cannot afford to ignore the complex challenges faced by homeless children and their families,” said Dr. Ralph da Costa Nunez, president of ICPH, in a news release. “Unless we enact common-sense public policies that address the educational and economic needs of homeless families, today’s homeless children may become tomorrow’s homeless parents.”

Among the report’s findings:

— Washington had the eighth-highest number of homeless students and the ninth-highest rate of homeless students among the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

— Four school districts — Seattle, Tacoma, Spokane and Highline — had more than 1,000 homeless students. In 10 school districts, more than 20 percent of the students were homeless.

— The average rate for homeless students identified as having a disability was 20 percent, nearly double the rate of their classmates. In three school districts — Nine Mile Falls in Eastern Washington, and Camas and Trout Lake in Southern Washington — almost half of all homeless students were identified as having a disability.

— Students were spread proportionately among cities, suburbs, towns and rural areas. About 43 percent lived in urban school districts.

Under the federal McKinney-Vento Act, a student is considered homeless if he or she lacks a fixed, regular and adequate place to sleep at night. The state receives about $950,000 per year from the U.S. Department of Education to help homeless students by paying for things like transportation, tutoring and school supplies.