OPPOSITION TO FOSTER YOUTH SERVICES IN K-12 CATEGORICAL PROGRAMS INCLUDED IN THE WEIGHTED PUPIL FORM

The purpose of this letter is to express our strong opposition to including Foster Youth Services (FYS), Budget line item 6110-119-0001, in the K-12 Categorical Programs Included in the Weighted Pupil Formula.

Consolidating FYS into a weighted pupil funding formula only makes sense if local education agencies are held specifically accountable for the academic performance of foster children. Unfortunately, at the current time, the vast majority of school districts do not have internal mechanisms to identify their students in foster care and are not being held specifically accountable for the academic performance of this population. Including FYS in the weighted student formula will redistribute a relatively small amount of funding from county offices of education to over 1,000 school districts, ending California’s countywide FYS programs and placing the burden of providing specialized educational supports to foster children on school districts.

The State of California created the FYS program because:

1) The state has a unique responsibility to children in foster care. In removing over 60,000 children and youth from their families and homes, the state assumes many responsibilities that a parent normally would, such as educational advocacy and support.

2) Foster children suffer from unique educational challenges: their academic progress is hampered by trauma, they experience frequent school changes, and they often have no parent-figure supporting their educational success. Consequently, the educational outcomes of foster children are significantly worse than even other economically disadvantaged students. Improving the educational outcomes of these children requires specialized educational supports different than those provided to disadvantaged children generally.

3) Federal laws such as the Fostering Connections Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-351) require child welfare agencies to monitor and track the educational progress of foster children. California’s child welfare and judicial systems operate at the county level, making countywide FYS programs best suited to ensure county school districts, child welfare agencies and courts have the information they need to fulfill state and federal mandates.

Without the FYS program, most school districts will be unable to identify the foster children in their schools. Moreover, most schools and districts do not have a clear understanding of the unique needs of these children. Without FYS, a nationally recognized model, it will be very difficult for districts to provide foster children the specialized educational supports they need.

In addition to the challenge of district-level implementation, the costs of complying with state and federal mandates would increase for county social service and probation departments, because instead of coordinating education services with one county-level education agency, some would have to work with up to 80 school districts.

Greater flexibility must be accompanied by accountability. Absent such accountability, including FYS in the K-12 categorical weighted pupil formula will result in negative educational outcomes for students in foster care. Currently there are no accountability mechanisms to ensure that school districts are addressing the academic needs of students in foster care. For all these reasons, the State should remove FYS (6110-119-0001) from the K-12 categorical weighted pupil formula.