Helping Students in Foster Care Stay in School

It has been five years since Con­gress passed the Fos­ter­ing Con­nec­tions Act. The act pro­vid­ed impor­tant guid­ance to two sys­tems: Child wel­fare and edu­ca­tion. The gist of its mes­sage: Keep kids in the same school when they are removed from their fam­i­lies because of abuse or neglect. If you must move them, ensure there are no bar­ri­ers to imme­di­ate enroll­ment in their new schools. Con­sid­er extend­ing fos­ter care—including its edu­ca­tion­al benefits—to kids up until age 21. And pro­vide more finan­cial help for post-sec­ondary edu­ca­tion for young peo­ple who have spent time in fos­ter care.

We’ve seen progress over five years but more work is still need­ed to help chil­dren in fos­ter care do bet­ter in school. Casey con­tin­ues to be involved in efforts to sup­port school sta­bil­i­ty. Why? Because chang­ing school fre­quent­ly has been shown to reduce achievement—and chil­dren in fos­ter care deserve bet­ter. For more information:

• Learn the lat­est from the Casey-sup­port­ed Legal Cen­ter on Fos­ter Care and Edu­ca­tion.
   
• Catch up on state-lev­el advances in reduc­ing school mobility.
   
• The Nation­al Work­ing Group on Fos­ter Care shares a fact sheet, ​“Edu­ca­tion is the Life­line for Youth in Fos­ter Care.”
   
• The Unin­ter­rupt­ed Schol­ars Act of 2013 makes shar­ing children’s edu­ca­tion records eas­i­er, so if it is in a child’s best inter­ests to change schools, records can be accessed eas­i­ly and case work­ers can bet­ter plan for the child’s ser­vice needs.
   
• What works to pro­mote school sta­bil­i­ty? See what a study of 5- to 8‑year-olds in Philadel­phia fos­ter care found.