COLUMBUS, Ohio - Students at the Teresa A. Dowd charter school learn reading, writing and other traditional subjects. They also get food to take to their families, help brushing their teeth and new clothes if needed.

        The school is one of 41 in the nation for homeless children. It has been made illegal by a change in federal law effective July 1 that prohibits segregating homeless children. Only six of the schools, in California and Arizona, are exempt because of lobbying by lawmakers in their areas.

        Dowd opened in 1999 to provide stability for homeless children struggling in regular public schools.

        “These kids seek love here,” said Principal Billie-Jo Altier. “I must get a hundred hugs a day.”

        However, some advocates for the homeless argue that such schools deprive the children of developing normal relationships with their peers.

        “There is no reason why homeless children should not be in the same schools as everybody else,” said Patricia Julianelle, education attorney with the Washington-based National Law Center of Homelessness and Poverty.

        “Being homeless is isolating enough,” she said.

        The Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, which was reauthorized in January, is intended to help homeless students get the same education provided to other children.

        Dowd's executive director, Robert Hall, says his school is different because parents choose to send their children there and because students attend for only a year.

        Mr. Hall said financial problems - not legal problems - may be the downfall for one of Ohio's first charter schools.

        A three-year federal grant for new charter schools that provided $100,000 each year ends this fall, and the school is worried that money will run out midyear. Ten board members resigned in June, and the remaining three were debating whether to close the school.

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