Ensure Educational Continuity and Post-Secondary Educational Opportunities
What Can Policymakers Do?
Require that young people remain in the school that they are enrolled in at time of removal and throughout placement changes unless a change is in the child’s best interest. Each time that students change schools, they lose four to six months of academic progress; consequently, school mobility is associated with an increased risk of failing a grade. Education planners in Michigan and Florida have made gains in ensuring that youth in placement remain in their original schools.
The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act, passed in October 2008, requires state child welfare agencies to coordinate with local education agencies to ensure that children remain in their school of origin, the school in which they are enrolled at the time of a foster placement. If a school change is in the youth’s best interest, immediate enrollment in a new school and prompt transfer of all of a youth’s education records are mandated. Fostering Connections provides increased funding for the transportation required for foster children to remain in their school of origin.
Make tuition waivers to public or private schools available to young people formerly in foster care up to the age of 24. Waiving tuition and/or fees at public or private post-secondary schools removes the financial burden of higher education for former foster youth. In Maine, tuition waivers are available to current foster youth and adopted youth upon their graduation from high school. No upper age limit exists for the waivers, which are evenly distributed between youth transitioning out of care and youth who have been adopted.
Provide other supports for post-secondary education, including books, computers, school supplies, tuition payment, education training vouchers and housing. For example, spurred by an advocacy group of young people currently and formerly in foster care, the University of Rhode Island changed its housing policy for students in foster care, allowing current or former foster youth to stay in dorms during school breaks and providing an important means of material support.