David Gordon
January 23, 2013

David W. Gordon

David Gordon

California has been a national leader in passing state legislation to better educational outcomes for foster youth and in recognizing the importance of sharing education data. Now, with the passage of the federal Uninterrupted Scholars Act and Governor Dark-brown's focus on the instruction needs of foster youth, the time is correct for California to support the use of a statewide foster youth educational activity database. We are in a unique position to serve more foster youth and literally save lives in the process.

Collaboration and data sharing is what the California Legislature had in mind when it passed the landmark Associates Bill 490 (AB 490), also known equally the Educational Rights and Stability for Foster Youth Act, in 2003. The bill authorizes the release of educational records to child welfare workers for purposes of educational case management. Unfortunately, the ensuing debate every bit to whether information sharing provisions in the nib conflicted with federal law (the Family unit Educational Rights and Privacy Human action) resulted in compliance that varied from canton to county. That led to delays and, in some cases, refusals to share data needed to improve the educational outcomes for foster children.

Three years prior to the passage of AB 490, the Sacramento Canton Office of Pedagogy (SCOE) recognized the need for this type of collaboration and worked with representatives from local school districts, Child Welfare, and Probation to create a database organization that could shop a child'south school placement history and other basic bookish information. This way, when a foster kid moved from one Sacramento County school district to another (a frequent occurrence), the receiving schoolhouse district could access the student's records through the database, eliminating enrollment delays and ensuring that students were placed in the appropriate courses. The resulting SCOE Foster Focus database debuted in 2000 and has since been enhanced and expanded to include grades, attendance, test scores and other academic information.

Today, Foster Focus houses teaching records for more than than 12,000 foster youth and is used by educators and social workers in 25 California counties. While that is a sign of progress, the fact remains there are more than xl,000 foster youth in the land whose education records are non in a linked database system. Foster Focus ensures that when a foster youth arrives in a new school he or she is placed in the correct courses, is provided all necessary academic supports, and receives all previously earned credits. Contempo programming upgrades, generously funded by the Stuart Foundation, allow school districts to electronically link and upload information daily into Foster Focus ensuring social workers take access to electric current and comprehensive educatee data. The system has multiple layers of all-encompassing safeguards to protect children's privacy. In add-on to countersign protection and encryption, the number of authorized users is limited. They must sign confidentiality agreements and when using Foster Focus can be identified down to the 24-hour interval, infinitesimal and section of the system they have viewed.

Foster Focus is the only foster youth education database in California existence used by multiple counties. It is fully adult, has the chapters to serve the entire country and could be implemented quickly and easily.

The president's signing of the Uninterrupted Scholars Act into law will provide much needed clarity and allow educators and social workers to work collaboratively and expediently to address the educational needs of foster youth. With this renewed focus on serving foster youth, now is the time to expand a statewide organisation in the best interest of so many underserved children in California.

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David Due west. Gordon serves as superintendent of the Sacramento County Office of Education. Previously he was superintendent of the Elk Grove Unified Schoolhouse District. He has also served on numerous commissions, committees and boards, including the President'due south Commission on Excellence in Special Education (2001-2003), the National Assessment Governing Board (2003-2011) and the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

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