Maryland Pupil Personnel Worker and Kinship Care Enrollment

You walk into a Maryland school office with a kinship care affidavit and proof of residency, and the registrar isn't sure what to do with it. Maybe they've never seen one before. Maybe they're asking for a court order you don't have. This is the moment you need to know about pupil personnel workers.

Maryland school systems use pupil personnel workers — PPWs — to help with attendance, residency, and informal enrollment disputes. A PPW may cover several schools, so the school or district enrollment office can direct you to the right contact.

What a Pupil Personnel Worker Does

PPWs are public school employees who can help address attendance, residency verification, and enrollment disputes. When a kinship caregiver hits a wall at the front desk, ask the school or district enrollment office who handles the issue.

In kinship care situations, a PPW can:

• Route affidavit questions. If a school registrar doesn't recognize an Education § 7-101(c) affidavit, ask the PPW or enrollment office to direct you to the staff member who reviews it.
• Help with hardship documentation. The school district can request evidence of the qualifying hardship (death certificate, incarceration record, medical documentation). Ask the PPW or enrollment office where to submit it.
• Resolve enrollment disputes. If a school tries to deny enrollment because you don't have custody papers, the PPW can intervene. Maryland law is clear: a valid sworn affidavit is sufficient for enrollment. The child must be admitted immediately, even while hardship documentation is still being processed.
• Connect you to additional services. PPWs know about McKinney-Vento protections for housing-unstable families, free meal programs, and local DSS resources. If the child qualifies for additional support, the PPW can point you there.

How to Reach the PPW

If the school office can't help you, ask whether a pupil personnel worker handles attendance, residency, or enrollment questions for the school and how to reach them.

You can also call the school district's central enrollment office and ask for the pupil personnel department. In larger districts — Montgomery County, Baltimore City, Prince George's County — the central office can direct you to the right person.

Don't wait for a problem to contact the PPW. If you're enrolling a child under a kinship care affidavit for the first time, calling the PPW before you arrive at the school can smooth the process. Explain that you'll be enrolling a child under Education § 7-101(c) and ask what documents to bring.

When the PPW Can't Help

PPWs operate within the school system. They can resolve enrollment and residency issues, but they can't provide legal advice, help you file court forms, or intervene in custody disputes.

If the issue goes beyond enrollment — if a parent is contesting the arrangement, if you need a court order, if the school district is violating the statute and the PPW isn't able to fix it — escalate to:

• The local superintendent's office for a formal enrollment appeal
• Maryland Legal Aid at (800) 999-8904 for free legal representation
• The Maryland Court Help Center at (410) 260-1392 for guidance on guardianship petitions

PPWs and McKinney-Vento

If the child lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence — for example, the child is sharing housing because of housing loss or economic hardship, or living in a motel, car, or substandard conditions — the PPW may refer you to the district's McKinney-Vento homeless liaison. That's a separate role from the PPW, though sometimes the same person fills both.

McKinney-Vento provides additional protections: immediate enrollment even if immunization records, birth certificates, academic transcripts, or proof of residency are missing; the right to remain in the child's school of origin for the duration of homelessness or the rest of the academic year; and direct transportation to and from the school of origin. The homeless liaison evaluates whether the child qualifies.

For a complete walkthrough of the kinship care enrollment process — including what to bring, which forms your county uses, and how to handle pushback — see our Maryland School and Medical Consent Guide.

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