BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
SB 1568 (DeSaulnier) - Former Foster Children: School of
Attendance
Amended: As Introduced Policy Vote: Education 8-0
Urgency: No Mandate: Yes
Hearing Date: May 7, 2012 Consultant: Jacqueline
Wong-Hernandez
This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill Summary: SB 1568 extends the duration of time that a pupil
who was in foster care may remain in his or her school of origin
after exiting the foster care system to the end of the highest
grade maintained at that school.
Fiscal Impact:
Potentially significant reimbursable state mandate for
local education agencies (LEAs) to train staff on
implementing the bill's provisions, including identifying
eligible students, verifying pupils' statuses, and
communicating the information to other LEAs, to the extent a
pupil exercises his or her new right to matriculate to a new
school with his or her peers.
Potentially significant cost pressure to provide school
transportation.
Background: Existing law provides that if the jurisdiction of
the court is terminated prior to the end of an academic year, a
foster youth must be allowed to continue in the school of origin
through the duration of the school year. If the foster youth is
transitioning between grade levels, including transitions to
middle or high school and even if the school designated for
matriculation is in another school district, the school district
must allow the foster youth to matriculate with his or her
peers. (EC � 48853.5(d)(2) & (3))
Proposed Law: This bill requires an LEA to allow, if the
jurisdiction of the court is terminated, the former foster child
to continue his or her education in the school of origin through
the end of the highest grade maintained at that school. This
bill also requires that LEAs allow former foster youth (as is
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required for foster youth) to matriculate between grade levels
with their peers, including transitions to middle or high
school, even if the school designated for matriculation is in
another school district. This bill provides that LEAs are not
required to provide transportation to allow foster youth to
attend a school.
Related Legislation: AB 490 (Steinberg) Chapter 862/2003
required LEAs to allow foster youth to remain in their school of
origin for the duration of the school year when their
residential placement changes.
Staff Comments: The requirements of this bill on LEAs will
likely constitute a state reimbursable mandate. The bill
specifies activities to be completed by LEAs, in order to ensure
a former foster youth's successful transition between schools.
LEAs will have to develop procedures for former foster youth who
wish to stay in their schools and matriculate to higher-grade
schools in the future with their peers. Staff in most LEAs will
likely need to be trained immediately on how to verify the pupil
information that entitles a student to stay within a district,
whether or not pupils exercise this right in large numbers.
Additional local costs and state cost pressures driven by this
bill are difficult to approximate because they will be
determined by individual decisions and actions. Approximately
17,000 foster youth ages 6-17 exit foster care in a given year.
Children younger and older than that age range exit, as well,
but it is unclear the degree to which the younger are in school
and to which the older would continue to be in their schools
beyond the end of the school year (which is already guaranteed
in current law). Of that population, this bill would only apply
to those pupils who: (a) exit foster care to a home that would
not be eligible to continue that pupil in the same school; (b)
wish to stay in their school of origin beyond the end of the
school year; (c) exit foster care and do not return to foster
care in the same placement or another in the same geographic
area; and, (d) are not already at the highest grade that the
pupil's school offers (or are also seeking to matriculate with
peers).
This bill does not require LEAs to provide transportation to and
from school for former foster youth who choose to continue
attendance, but also specifies that it does not prohibit
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providing such transportation. To the extent that the same child
was being provided transportation in his or her foster care
placement, there may be additional cost pressure to continue
that transportation.