Janet Ciramella, assistant superintendent of the Deer Lakes School District remembers the 1990-91 school year when, for the first time, the Allegheny Intermediate Unit held training for school officials on how to identify homeless children in their districts.

At the time, Dr. Ciramella was an elementary principal and she thought the training was irrelevant to her district because she didn't believe there were any homeless children in the schools.

But to her surprise, shortly after the training, she was able to identify a boy whose family lived in the trailer of a truck.

"Until someone makes you aware of what to look for, you don't know the signs," Dr. Ciramella said.

Since that year -- the first that the area received federal funds to ensure that homeless children had access to education --the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, through its Homeless Children's Initiative, has helped districts identify homeless children and connect them and their families to services.

Gail Odorcich, program director for the initiative, said there are between 1,800 and 2,000 homeless children in Allegheny County and about 4,000 in the nine-county area the initiative serves.

In Allegheny County, the majority of homeless children live in single-parent families headed by females. Most are homeless either due to a lack of affordable housing or domestic violence, Mrs. Odorcich said.

"They've had to deal with things in their lives that I will never see. They've had murders and drug addictions and all of this loss. But they are so resilient," Mrs. Odorcich said.

Each year, the initiative receives about $350,000 in federal funds through the state to serve the homeless children of the region, Mrs. Odorcich said. But the Intermediate Unit's initiative partners with a variety of other groups to get goods and services to the families.

As an example, the international organization Feed the Children will donate about 2,000 new backpacks in September for use by the children served by the program. For the second year, the Bittner Building in the Strip District will allow the initiative to use its loading dock for the backpack delivery.

"We have to partner with other organizations ... because the federal money just doesn't go very far," Mrs. Odorcich said.

The federal money was made available after the 1987 passage of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. The law ensures homeless children have all the same rights to public education other children have.

It requires every school district to designate a homeless children's liaison and that homeless children be enrolled, even if they lack immunization and academic records.

Under the act, children are considered homeless if they "lack a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence." That includes any who are living with a friend or family member because of an emergency such as a fire, or economic hardship.

It also includes anyone living in emergency or transitional shelters, hotels, motels, campgrounds, cars, abandoned buildings, bus or train stations and migratory children.

Districts must provide transportation to children living in shelters or temporary locations, Mrs. Odorcich said.

Districts are now well aware of their responsibilities under the law and well-acquainted with Mrs. Odorcich, she said. But in the early years, it was a struggle.

"Shelters didn't want to bother with all of the red tape to get them enrolled. School districts didn't want to deal with them and parents had so many problems they didn't want to deal with it," Mrs. Odorcich said. "We have come a long way from that time."

For some school districts, such as Clairton it is easy to identify homeless children because of agencies such as Sisters Place, which operates a variety of programs for homeless families in Clairton.

This year there will be 43 homeless children in the Clairton district, said Juanita Horn, the district's home school liaison. Most of them are either living with relatives, in Sisters Place housing or in shelters, Mrs. Horn said.

"We make sure they have backpacks, uniforms and school supplies," Mrs. Horn said. She said the district also makes sure older students needs are met, like fees for caps and gowns for graduation.

For other districts, such as Deer Lakes, where there aren't shelters providing service, it's more difficult to identify homeless children.

The boy that Dr. Ciramella discovered in the 1990-91 school year was coming to school in the same clothes each day. His parents had a car to drive him to and from school, but district officials found that home was the trailer of a tractor-trailer. District officials tried unsuccessfully to connect the family to services, and the family eventually moved.

Often homeless students are transient, as families move from shelter to shelter or among relatives and friends, said Mrs. Odorcich and school officials.

There hasn't been another case so dramatic since then in Deer Lakes, said Barbara Tomlinson, director of special education and the district's homeless children's liaison.

In recent years, most of the homeless children in Deer Lakes have been living with family members either because of a fire or economic conditions, Dr. Tomlinson said.

"There have been several fires in the district and we know about them. But we don't always know about a family losing a job unless someone tells us. There are also kids who move out of their homes and live with friends because of problems within the family such as divorce, drinking or drugs. They try to escape these situations," Dr. Tomlinson said.

She said the staff is trained to ask the appropriate questions.

"If we find out the student is homeless, we provide whatever services they need and we hook up many times with Gail (Odorcich)," Dr. Tomlinson said.

The Homeless Children's Initiative doesn't just look after the students' needs during the school year. Summertime activities -- usually revolving around math and reading -- are sponsored for children living in temporary housing.

One was a theater workshop and production that was held Aug. 8 at the Intermediate Unit headquarters in Homestead in which more than 118 children from tots to teens participated.

Then last week, a group of about 20 children from the shelters were taken to the Build-A-Bear store at Ross Park Mall for what was supposed to be an activity sponsored by the wives of some Pittsburgh Pirates.

But the day got really exciting when some of the players, Zach Duke, Sean Burnett and Freddy Sanchez showed up along with the Pirate Parrot.

"Awesome, awesome, awesome," chanted Jaslyn Cuff, 14, and her friend Jesse Butler, 13, who had their pictures taken with Mr. Sanchez.

Jeremy Vogel, 9, had a huge grin on his face as he got a Pirates hat signed by Mr. Sanchez and then spent some time wrestling withe the Pirate Parrot.

"This is the best," Jeremy said of his adventure.