(Calif.) Legislation set for a final Senate floor vote sometime in the next week would significantly recast the public school system’s safety net for foster youth by, among other things, creating regional support networks overseen by county offices of education and making services available to more of these disadvantaged students.
In addition to providing nearly $25.4 million in grants for that work, AB 854 also establishes numerous program rules, including the requirement that school districts report specific information about foster youth in state-mandated Local Control Accountability Plans.
“AB 854 is the legislation that modifies foster youth services program requirements to reflect the Local Control Funding Formula and associated responsibilities of school districts to directly provide services to foster youth,” reads a Senate analysis of the bill, authored by Democratic Assemblymember Shirley Weber of San Diego.
The LCFF, California’s new education finance system adopted in 2013, includes foster youth as one of several subsets of disadvantaged students for whom districts receive extra funding.
Students in foster care, according to a 2013 report titled “The Invisible Achievement Gap,” have among the lowest scores in English-language arts and mathematics of any subgroup as well as having the highest dropout rate – nearly three times that of other students – and the lowest high school graduation rate of any subgroup.
To read the rest of this story by Kimberly Beltran, go to: https://www.cabinetreport.com/...net-for-foster-youth
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