HR 5868:
Fostering Success in Education Act
3 Comments have been left
Official Title: To provide children in foster care with school stability and equal access to educational opportunities.
Sponsor: Rep Lewis (D, GA)
Date: 09/26/2012
Summary:
Fostering Success in Education Act - Requires each state receiving school improvement funds under part A of title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to ensure that its foster care children have the right to: (1) continue attending the school they were in when placed in foster care or before a change in such placement (school of origin), unless it is determined to be in the child's best interest to be immediately enrolled in a different school; (2) immediate enrollment in a new school in their school attendance area; (3) well-maintained school records that are available in a timely manner; (4) equal access to the same education and opportunities as other students attending the school or school district; and (5) free transportation to and from their school. Includes preschool children as beneficiaries of such rights, with respect to preschool programs. Requires states to: (1) ensure that their state and local educational agencies (LEAs) and child welfare agencies collaborate in specified activities aimed at satisfying such rights; and (2) maintain a complaint management system, as well as an effective system for transferring and recovering a foster child's school credits. Requires an LEA serving a foster child's school of origin to make an expedited decision on whether it is in the foster child's best interest to attend such school or be immediately enrolled in a new school in the child's school attendance area, unless the state decides that the decision is to be made solely by the dependency court or state or local child welfare agency. Requires states to have fair and impartial procedures to resolve school selection disputes promptly. Allows parties who claim that their rights under this Act have been violated to bring a civil action in the appropriate U.S. district court. Directs the Secretary of Education to allot grants to states and, through them, competitive subgrants to public agencies, including LEAs and local child welfare agencies, to carry out this Act's requirements. Requires each state grantee to: (1) implement a Secretary-approved state foster care and education plan for satisfying this Act's requirements; and (2) establish a Stakeholder Council that monitors, and makes recommendations regarding, plan implementation. Amends part E (Foster Care and Adoption Assistance) of title IV of the Social Security Act to require state child welfare agencies to arrange for, provide, or pay the cost of the transportation necessary for foster children to remain in the school they attended at the time of their placement. Requires state and local child welfare and educational agencies to collaborate in eliminating barriers to the educational stability, enrollment, and success of foster children.
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Latest Action: Referred to the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education.
Fuzzytek Detroit, MI
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Thumbs DownI find the corruption that has been encountered in Michigan's DHS/CPS and into the Foster Care program extremely alarming. Children have been kidnapped, put on psychotropic drugs to become cash kids that the system is milking for money. Placement into foster homes is a search for the right fit that will do the bidding of DHS/CPS to ensure the child remains medicated and pulling through money into the system. Of course children in the Foster Care system deserve school, and they deserve clear minds unobstructed by ill-fostered drug treatment programs. Perhaps the schools can be encouraged to identify children that are brought to them that fit the pattern of systemic corruption - although my faith in the system is weak. People with power need to be jailed for criminal activity that has existed for decades.
Posted on August 12th, 2012
joshua Cincinnati, OH
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Thumbs DownWe are a great nation when we together support caring for children who need it most. This is a great step forward that should bring bipartisan support. The cost is greater to not do anything for these kids and the families who care for them.
Posted on July 10th, 2012
Rainbows! Park City, UT
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Thumbs DownPart of improving our education system, means including all children - even those usually disregarded or left out of the process. Foster children deserve the right to equal and consistent education, just like children from traditional, nuclear families.
Posted on July 9th, 2012