Showing up at school is a common struggle in foster care. Foster parents scramble to arrange transportation. Court dates and therapy appointments upend attendance. And with every new placement, there can be new schools, with new classes, new teachers and students. Transcripts and school records often go missing.
According to Department of Education statistics, last year in California, more than one in three children in foster care were “chronically absent,” a term that refers to students who miss more than 10% of school days.
A policy brief released last month by a Stanford University research center provides new insight. The Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis surveyed four large California school districts, and found students involved with the child welfare system missed the most days when they were transitioning in and out of foster care. Students in foster care were also four times more likely than their peers to be suspended.
Co-author Kevin Gee, an education professor at UC Davis, said schools and child welfare agencies must collaborate more closely to address the problem as kids are removed and then returned to the families.
His study “underscores the need to pay closer attention to these critical transition periods,” Gee said, “on top of making sure foster youth are also receiving the kinds of support and services that they need to attend school.”
High rates of no-shows
Chronic absenteeism surged in California and nationwide during the coronavirus pandemic — for all students, not just those in foster care. But it has since come down in the general student population, from 30% in 2021-22 to 19% last year, according to state statistics.
Foster youth are the exception. The recently released study shows that statewide, 37% are considered to be chronically absent. This is the highest chronic absentee rate of any student group in California, including those who are homeless, children with disabilities and low-income students.
“At the beginning, your whole life just exploded. The idea that you’re going to be able to concentrate on history class is doubtful when you’re wondering, ‘What happened to my dog?’”
— Ann Quirk, Children’s Law Center of California
DaeJah Seward, a Solano County social worker, said schools struggle to engage foster youth, who often end up getting punished for behavior associated with processing trauma and family separation.
“My concern is making sure that my kids feel safe enough to come into school and show up consistently,” Seward said. “Our kids are going to class expecting to be condemned and criticized instead of taught.”
Ann Quirk, a Sacramento-based policy attorney with the Children’s Law Center of California, agreed that some of the hardest times for her clients in foster care are right after they’re taken from home.
“At the beginning, your whole life just exploded,” Quirk said. “The idea that you’re going to be able to concentrate on history class is doubtful when you’re wondering, ‘What happened to my dog?’”
On a more promising note, the policy brief shows that although the rocky early period in foster care is associated with the highest number of missed school days, once students are settled into the system, they are more likely to attend school.
“Entry into care may move students out of destabilizing or unsafe home environments and into more structured settings, increasing access to adult supervision, educational advocacy, and social supports that stabilize daily school participation,” the policy brief reads.
Discipline impacts
Still, once at school, foster youth face another barrier to staying in class — higher rates of discipline.
Roughly 13% of California foster youth are suspended from school, compared with 3% of the general student population, according to the Department of Education.
These suspensions carry repercussions far beyond the school day. When students are sent home, their caregivers may not be able to take time off of work to be with them, jeopardizing their placements in family homes.
“When they lose their placements, that’s when you see kids get pushed into congregate care or become separated from their siblings,” Quirk said.
Aside from school discipline, researchers found another area of concern. When young people leave foster care to reunify with their parents, the transitions can create new stressors that disrupt school routines yet again.
They also lose access to programs and extra support offered during foster care, such as counseling and an education liaison appointed by the state.
Gee and his colleagues suggest more help should be offered to students during such transition periods.
“Just because a foster kid has been reunified with the family, that doesn’t necessarily mean all of the challenges go away automatically,” he said.
