Students in foster care are disproportionately suspended from school and have lower attendance compared to their peers who aren’t in the foster care system, according to a report released Monday.
Commissioned by the New York City-based think tank The Century Foundation, the report analyzed novel data from New York’s “Big 4” school districts excluding New York City — Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Yonkers Public Schools — as well as schools in surrounding counties. It examined eight years of data on more than 400,000 students enrolled between 2017 and 2025. Among them, nearly 800 were students in foster care.
The results reveal “a heartbreaking reality for some of New York’s most vulnerable students,” wrote report author Chantal Hinds, now a senior policy manager for Children’s Defense Fund – New York. “Whether due to suspensions or attendance challenges, students in the foster system (and Black or African American and Hispanic or Latino students in particular) have lost valuable instructional time,” as well as opportunities to connect with peers and adults who can support their educational journeys, Hinds added.
Christina Young, a 30-year-old Brooklynite who entered foster care when she was 13, said teachers too often rely on suspensions because they’re unaware of the unique challenges that foster youth face. Young, who moved between seven different foster and residential treatment placements until she finally aged out at 21, said the instability made it difficult to focus on school. She also struggled with her mental health and bullying from peers.
“They just looked at my behavior, and labeled me as a ‘bad child,’ versus actually taking the time to understand what was going on,” Young said. “I kind of got it in my head that everybody expected me to be a screw-up, because I was being suspended so much, always being reprimanded.”
The report released Monday describes poor attendance rates among foster youth — who often change homes and schools. Students in Buffalo Public Schools had the lowest attendance: on average, they missed roughly eight weeks of school in a year. The numbers were worse among Black foster students in Buffalo, who missed more than nine weeks of the school year.
They were also disproportionately disciplined. In every region, students in foster care were suspended at significantly higher rates than those not in foster care, particularly Black and Hispanic students. The report also broke down data for in-school suspensions, in which students are removed from regular classes and placed in a separate classroom under supervision.
“They just looked at my behavior, and labeled me as a ‘bad child,’ versus actually taking the time to understand what was going on. I kind of got it in my head that everybody expected me to be a screw-up because I was being suspended so much.”
— Christina Young, former foster youth
Among schools in Buffalo, 26% of students in foster care experienced at least one out-of-school suspension, as did 17% of Rochester public school students, 14% in Syracuse and 11% in Yonkers.
These numbers were much lower for their peers not in foster care in each region, which ranged from 11% of Buffalo students and 3% of Yonkers Public Schools students were issued suspensions.
The gap widened significantly when the statistics were broken down by race. In Buffalo, Black students in foster care were more than twice as likely to receive suspensions compared with Black students without foster care experience. In Rochester, Latino students in foster care were suspended at a rate nearly three times higher than their peers of the same race who weren’t in the foster care system.
A lack of support in school took a toll on Young. In an interview, she described dropping out of high school at 16. But she later re-enrolled, and went on to achieve a master’s degree. She currently works at You Gotta Believe, an adoption agency in New York City.
School was her way out, Young said, but she acknowledged how rare her success is compared to the other children in foster care she grew up with. Educational outcomes for this population remain stark — just 51% of students in foster care in New York State graduated from high school on time compared to 86% of students not in foster care, according to recent state data.
“It is not an indictment on the child themselves or some sort of lack of ability, it’s an indictment on a system that doesn’t provide the appropriate supports and services.”
— CHANTAL Hinds, REPORT AUTHOR
In her report, Hinds called on the state Office of Children and Family Services and local child welfare agencies to conduct district-specific analyses of attendance and discipline outcomes for students in foster care. She also urged agencies and the state education department to train school staff and caseworkers in trauma-informed practices. These changes would help reduce schools’ reliance on suspensions by providing holistic, social and behavioral support such as counseling, she said.
Not doing so, Hinds warned, could not only worsen educational outcomes for foster youth but create “an underclass of people who don’t have access to the basic skills they need to go on in life.”
“The appropriate response is to see this data as an alarm, as a signal that something is very wrong,” Hinds said in an interview. “It is not an indictment on the child themselves or some sort of lack of ability, it’s an indictment on a system that doesn’t provide the appropriate supports and services.”
Schools and agencies also need to hear directly from more young people with lived experience, said Buffalo native Leah Daniel, who grew up in foster care and now runs her own nonprofit, Fostering Greatness. Foster youth miss school because of a myriad of reasons, from inadequate bussing while they move to a new placement to being bullied at a new school.
“These young people are in survival mode,” Daniel said. “What’s happening in these schools is that people are not taking into account that they’re really struggling. Maybe they didn’t sleep the night before, maybe they don’t have clothing or any of the things they may need in order to thrive in school the next day, and so they’re acting out.”
Students would also benefit from having trained social workers in schools, who could work with teachers and help reduce the stigma that foster children often experience, Daniel added.
She recalled her own experience in the Buffalo public school system. As a sixth grader, Daniel said she lived in a foster home with a man she described as a pedophile. She was too scared to fall asleep at home, so she would often doze off in classes. Instead of punishing her, Daniel’s guidance counselor took time to find out what was happening at home, she said. And when her foster parents didn’t feed her enough, her teachers stepped in.
“They would let me eat lunch with them and they would bring things for me, they would talk to me, and that helped me. That really helped,” Daniel said. “We don’t have to reinvent the wheel or anything, but it’s all about communication and really looking at people as human beings.”
The Century Foundation’s report is the first time suspension and attendance rates of foster children at schools outside of New York City has been analyzed.
In 2023, legislation passed by the city council required school officials to release separate statistics on students in temporary housing and foster care, and track disability evaluations, special education needs, suspensions, and calls to emergency services. Those must be broken down by school district, school and grade level, among other factors.
The city’s Department of Education also created a dedicated office focusing on students in foster care the same year, staffed with a team of five support coordinators, a data manager and a training associate. The office has been tasked with improving school bus routes for foster children and communication between families and school staff, as well as holding workshops in the city’s schools to train teachers on the distinct needs of kids raised in the child welfare system.
Correction: This story has been updated with Chantal Hinds’ accurate job title. She is a senior policy manager at Children’s Defense Fund.
