According to a report released last month by the Public Policy Institute of California, nearly 20 percent of children in the state lived below the poverty line in 2016, well above the rate in 2007 of about 17 percent.
“I think California, at the state level, is actually leading the way in a number of regards when it comes to identifying certain subgroups of children living in poverty,” said Jesse Hahnel, executive director of the National Center for Youth Law, non-profit law firm that advocates for low-income children.
“There isn’t any one system or set of agencies that is going to be able to adequately support children living in poverty, because the needs of low-income children is immense,” Hahnel said in an interview. “There are things that schools, districts and county offices of education can and should be doing, but they shouldn’t be doing those things by themselves.”
Some districts have gone beyond working with parents, and have developed plans that include their county office of education, local child welfare agencies, health agencies, behavioral health agencies and employment offices, Hahnel said, but such examples are few and far between.
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