DPS program: Foster-care liaison works to reduce number of school transfers for kids. »
DPS liason project designed to lessen impact on grades
A 4-year-old girl arrived at her first foster home wearing dirty clothes and a pair of shoes large enough for a man.
The next day, the girl was able to enroll in a Denver preschool and her foster mother received a suitcase filled with clean clothes, pajamas and shoes.
The quick action was thanks to Denver Public Schools’ foster care liaison program, which works to reduce the number of times foster kids have to switch schools — or works, at least, to make the transitions easier.
Of the 6,500 children in Colorado’s foster system last year, 55 percent changed schools at least once during the school year.
School districts are required to have child welfare education liaisons, a point-of-contact between schools and county child welfare departments. Liaisons join a “best interests determination” phone call for each foster child who might transfer into a local school, said Jackie Bell, manager of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act foster care program at DPS.
Liaisons from the child’s original and current school are invited to the call, as are the biological parents and the child. They discuss attendance, grades, behavior and school activities to determine whether a school transfer makes sense or the youth — despite a new foster placement — should remain at the same school.
In another recent case, an 11thgrader was returning to Denver to live in a group home after spending months with relatives in Kansas in a “kinship” placement. The girl wanted to return to her original school in Denver, but the school’s 11th grade was full. After caseworkers and district liaisons determined that the original school — though 10 miles from her group home — was best for the girl, she was accepted.
Liaisons also can set up free lunch and find the child’s transcripts and proof of address for the school office. A private tab in the district’s computer system includes the child’s foster status but is seen only by staff who work in the district’s federal programs di- vision.
Colorado law created child welfare education liaisons in 2008, years ahead of a similar federal requirement.
But no state policy exists to clarify whether teachers should know whether a child in their classroom is in foster care.
“The confidentiality piece is really something that is going to be interpreted by each district and school,” said Kristin Myers, the state’s foster care education coordinator and who works at the Colorado Department of Education.
Typically, the only other school employees aside from the liaison who know a child is in foster care are the school’s social worker and counselor. Teachers find out only if a foster parent wants them to know, either for safety or academic reasons.
Teachers should know, for example, if a biological parent is not allowed to pick up the child from school. Or that the child has already moved twice this year and is behind academically. In some cases, teachers are informed that a child has been abused or neglected because it might affect how they handle behavior problems.
Federal law in 2015 also required states to report dropout and graduation rates of foster children as a separate category.
While some states are trying to accomplish that, Colorado was ahead of the pack thanks to a data-sharing agreement that allowed the University of Northern Colorado to track foster kids — tagged in the state data with identification numbers, not names — as the children entered the foster care system and changed placements.
A UNC study that included 7,600 students in Colorado who entered foster care from 2008 to 2014 determined that they already are behind their peers when they are removed from their homes. Each time a student moves to a new foster placement and switches schools, test scores drop -- on average, 3.7 percentage points of growth in reading, 3.5 in math and 3 in writing.
The cumulative effect of not making a year’s growth in a year’s time means poor academic outcomes don’t end when foster kids are returned to their parents or are adopted, researcher Elysia Clemens found.
Legislation awaiting the governor’s signature also aims to cut down school mobility. The proposal provides dedicated money to pay for transportation to a child’s “school of origin,” no matter if it’s miles away in another county. School districts and child welfare departments are supposed to work together to come up with a plan, whether it’s using an “Uber for kids” service, buying a van, or paying mileage for county employees or foster parents to make the drive.
The bill also requires school districts to accept credits from other schools for foster kids, even when course requirements are not the same. Similar to the intrastate compact for kids whose parents are in the military, it would allow a receiving school to make exceptions for students who don’t have the required years of a foreign language or math to graduate, for example.
And it requires that schools accept a foster kid instantly, instead of delaying admission for weeks while transcripts or other documents are gathered.
In some school districts, a foster child’s court-appointed special advocate, or CASA, will drive the child to school to avoid a school move, said Nancy Stewart, executive director of Denver CASA.
“Staying in the same school,” she said, “helps kids establish trust with teachers, builds their self-esteem and sense of belonging — all important things as the child moves to adulthood and leaving the system.”