ESSA

  In the eastern suburbs of Sacramento County, Kamika Hebbert keeps a watchful eye for signs of how an unstable environment affects young minds. There’s the restlessness that comes with worry about biological parents and siblings.

Since the 2015 passage of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), school districts and child welfare agencies around the country have been tasked with developing transportation plans to keep foster youth in their schools of origin if that is what they prefer.

When Karina Melendez missed multiple days of school during the winter of her sophomore year, it wasn’t because she was willfully truant or lazy. The student, who usually got straight As, had been placed in the foster care system and was balancing class at her Bronx public high school with court appointments, meetings with lawyers and social workers, and the emotional shock of uprooting her life.

We’re counting down 10 of the biggest stories The Imprint published in 2018. Each day, we’ll connect readers with a few links to our coverage on a big story from 2018.

Six Colorado school districts, two education associations and two private citizens are pushing back against a new state law aimed at improving school transportation for students in foster care. HB 18-1306 was signed by Gov.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) signed two landmark bills into law this session related to improving outcomes for youth in the state’s foster care system. As of June 1, through H.B.

A $2.9 million bill aimed at improving the educational success of students who are foster youths cleared a key committee in the Colorado legislature in April. If the bill is signed by the governor, Colorado will be the first state to legislate the implementation of a federal law that compels school systems to ensure that, among other things, foster kids have a ride to school.

In Arizona, as in many other parts of the United States, school stability for foster youth is a significant problem. Forty-two percent of students in foster care switched schools during the school year, according to a 2015 West Ed report, and research has shown that each change costs a student at least three months of academic progress.

Earlier this month, a Rhode Island state senator introduced a bill that would compel the state’s foster care agency to split the cost of transporting foster youth to school with the education system.