Foster Care Community of Practice

Children in foster care constitute a vulnerable population who have historically experienced consistently poor education outcomes relative to their peers with more stable family situations. Additionally, they also tend to experience a higher frequency of unscheduled school changes compared to their peers. As a group, children in foster care have significantly lower academic achievement and high school graduation rates, and significantly higher rates of absenteeism, grade retention, and exclusionary discipline.

This CoP will address the following topics:

• Overview of requirements of Fostering Connections and ESEA pertinent to improving educational stability for students in foster care
• Opportunities to learn from SEAs and state child welfare partners who have developed shared understanding, mutual commitments, clear collaborative processes, and common metrics for monitoring progress, improving methods, and demonstrating impact on significant student outcomes
• Examination of exemplary state laws and policies
• Sharing of state plans, policies, and protocols to receive feedback from other CoP participants, including activities that identify common issues across participants and sharing of practices/solutions peer participants have used to address those issues
• Opportunities to refine systems to support LEAs and community child welfare partners with their implementation