Foster kids denied stable education in Kentucky would get help under new legislation

With many foster children struggling in Kentucky schools, a leader in the General Assembly has filed a bill with new requirements for foster parents, social workers and educators so that kids don’t lose academically as they make frequent moves to new homes and schools.

House Bill 312, filed this week by House Speaker Pro Tempore David Meade, R-Stanford, is wide-ranging legislation that specifically requires caseworkers to go with the child and the foster parent to the new school or call the school to provide information so the child is not initially denied academic programs or special help.

School officials have said that foster parents enrolling children often don’t have basic information about the children they are caring for, including where they last attended school. It is often unclear to the school who the child’s education decision-maker is as they make frequent moves between foster homes and schools.

“There is a very real commitment to doing all we can to give the children in our foster care system every opportunity to succeed,” Meade said Friday. “This bill provides educators the information they need to help these children transition into a new classroom. It will provide greater consistency, which we all know is critical to a child’s academic and emotional development.”

On Kentucky statewide tests in 2017-18, only 36.4 percent of public elementary children in foster care performed at the proficient /distinguished level in reading compared to 54.8 percent of non-foster care children. In math, 28.9 percent were proficient/distinguished compared to 49 percent of children not in foster care, according to the Kentucky Department of Education’s school report card.

Under House Bill 312, the Kentucky Department of Education would set up a process to expedite the enrollment of foster children who are transferring to a new school or district. School records and other important information about the child’s medical, academic and emotional history would have to shared quickly between the various state and school officials in the child’s life. That is not happening now, advocates and educators have said.

Under the bill, foster parents, including those in private child-placing agencies, would get training on how to support a child’s academic process and agencies would have to develop new written policies about how foster families can support foster children at school. The bill also addresses a related issue that school administrators talked about at an interim legislative hearing -- students are sometimes placed in foster homes that have previously been shut down by one agency but allowed to reopen under another.

The legislation requires private child-placing agencies to notify, with 14 days, state foster care officials and each other through a registry when a foster family home is closed. In general, the legislation puts more scrutiny on foster homes that have been closed and puts limits on whether they can reopen.

State department of education officials were reviewing the bill Friday. State foster care officials didn’t immediately comment but told lawmakers last fall they were working to balance the safety of the child with educational concerns.

Eric Kennedy, a foster and adoptive parent and Director of Advocacy for the Kentucky School Boards Association, who has been asking for improvements, said Friday that the bill will go far in addressing some of the concerns educators and school administrators presented to an interim legislative committee in August.

“It will enhance information sharing and collaboration between teachers, social workers and foster parents, and other partners in the child welfare system,” Kennedy said. “This will allow everyone to more quickly identify and meet the educational needs of each child in foster care. .. It will also help ensure our foster children are in high-quality foster homes that understand and support their educational needs as well as other needs.”

This story was originally published January 24, 2020 at 3:49 PM.