Amid Failure, 3 Counties Offer Hope in Improving Outcomes for California Foster Youth
November 14, 2019
Many school districts in California are “struggling to live up to a now three-year-old federal requirement,” originally set by the Every Student Succeeds Act, to “ensure foster youth have educational stability.” Under ESSA, educational and child welfare agencies are to collaborate “to create transportation plans so that foster students could return to their so-called ‘school of origin’ if that is in their best interest.” California schools are now three years past that deadline and only 34 percent of child welfare agencies have such plans in place. Los Angeles, San Diego, and Sacramento offer hope, however, as each county has worked to implement programs intended to increase transportation services for foster youth, including a $14 million transportation plan in Los Angeles County; volunteer assistance from foster parents in San Diego County; and an innovative new program called School Connect in Sacramento.