HONOLULU -- Civil rights lawyers asked a federal court on Tuesday to immediately stop the state from enforcing policies, which they claim block homeless children's access to public schools.

KITV's Keoki Kerr spoke exclusively with the children at the center of the lawsuit:

The state receives about $200,000 a year from the federal government to track and educate homeless children. Homeless families have sued, saying the DOE is violating a 20-year-old federal law requiring public schools to accommodate homeless students.

"Our children shouldn't be penalized for our hardship," homeless parent Alice Greenwood said.

Greenwood lives at the state's new Waianae homeless shelter with her son, Makalii, 7.

He said sometimes his uncle has to take him on a 45-minute bike ride to school, because the state's school buses do not serve the homeless shelter.

"They want our children to get to school? Well, what about the buses? They have it for everybody else that's in a house," Greenwood said.

Other homeless families said their children were denied registration at public schools because they had no permanent address. That is against federal law.

A pair of boys had to transfer schools in Waianae when they moved from one shelter to another.

"When I first went to my new school, I started crying because my brother, he started crying first so I felt sorry for him, so I started crying too," homeless student Kaleuati Kaleuati said.

"These children can't wait for some kind of bureaucratic response to this. They need relief right now, they need to get into school, they need buses to come pick them up to take them to school. They can't afford to miss anymore school," said attorney William Durham of Lawyers for Equal Justice.

A Department of Education spokesman said the DOE seeks to educate every homeless child, including the hidden homeless.