For many families in Middletown, Ohio, instability is the daily reality. And for students caught in the middle, the distance between home and school can become the difference between staying enrolled and falling away. Middletown City Schools is a compact but high-need district in Butler County, Ohio, serving students across nine schools. Every student in the district qualifies for free and reduced lunch; this baseline indicator speaks to the depth of economic pressure families in the area face every single day. Beth Olthoff serves as the district’s McKinney-Vento liaison, supporting students and families experiencing housing instability. She works alongside a team of building-level Success Liaisons including Emily Morgan, Julie Caito, Myla Perry, and Keileigh Bennett to address every non-academic barrier standing between students and their classrooms, before they become chronic problems.

One of the top barriers they regularly face is transportation.

The Challenge: A Fast-Moving Target

Housing instability rarely arrives as a single crisis. Middletown’s MKV liaisons describe a compounding pattern that has grown more acute in recent years. Rising cost-of-living pressures have stretched family budgets past the breaking point.

As one liaison described it: “Do I feed my family on this small budget that used to get me a lot more, or do I pay my electric bill?”

When a family loses housing or doubles up with relatives, students often remain enrolled at their original school. That’s the stability the MKV law was designed to protect, but introduces complications when that student now lives miles outside district boundaries, or if their temporary home base changes multiple times over the course of the year.

Families’ circumstances can shift overnight. Oftentimes whatever plan was in place at the end of one day may have changed by the time they wake up. That level of unpredictability demands a transportation response that is equally flexible.

Sometimes public transportation can help, but not always. Safety concerns, scheduling gaps, and the age of the student all factor into whether a bus pass is truly a viable option. And for parents managing early shifts and childcare simultaneously, it becomes another tradeoff: “It’s between taking my child to school or making it to work,” as one liaison explained.

The Solution: A Transportation Strategy Built Around Flexibility

Middletown’s approach to solving transportation challenges is built around a portfolio of solutions including gas cards, alternative ride options, and community partnerships to meet needs as they emerge. They provide the right transportation solution with each student’s individual needs that day. One of the district’s partners that’s proved especially valuable when students are living outside district boundaries is EverDriven; the leading alternative student transportation provider is activated when the complexity of a student’s situation exceeds what traditional district transportation can accommodate.

The district’s approach is also rooted in relationship. Success Liaisons build trust over time, with both families and their transportation partners. They’re continuously following up, checking in, and staying close enough to a family’s situation to notice when a new barrier is forming before it becomes a crisis. Liaisons know when a student has moved, when a family needs same-day support, and when EverDriven’s flexibility is required.

The Impact: Presence Is the Starting Point for Everything Else

Success in Middletown City Schools starts with attendance. A student has to get to school before they can even start thinking about grades or graduation.

When transportation is secure and reliable, a student has made it past the starting line. From there, they can build and maintain connection to familiar teachers, consistent routines, and the peer relationships that make school feel safe. Those conditions create the foundation for learning.

And MKV Liaisons’ success is dependent on building trust with the families they support. If a family that’s moved past one crisis still feels comfortable reaching out when a new challenge arises, it’s a signal of success for the district: the support system they’ve built is working as intended, and families see them as a partner rather than an institution to navigate around.

What Other Districts Can Learn

Transportation and housing stability are intertwined problems, and districts need to establish student transportation strategies that recognize this at the core. Addressing transportation without addressing instability leaves gaps. Addressing instability without reliable transportation leaves students stranded.

The districts that make the most meaningful difference for students experiencing homelessness are the ones that manage both simultaneously, and build flexible partnerships that let them respond when circumstances change overnight.

For Middletown, that partnership includes EverDriven. And for the students who need it most, a dependable ride to school is the prerequisite that makes everything else possible.

Learn more about how EverDriven supports McKinney-Vento students and districts navigating the intersection of transportation and housing instability.