Sacramento Snapshot: Legislators want to ensure schools are providing services for foster youth

California has resources to help educate foster and unhoused youth — including tutoring and college financial aid services — but are students able to access, or even find, that help?

That’s the point behind a AB 2137, a bill from Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva, D-Fullerton, that aims to ensure existing resources are readily available for needy students.

The multifaceted proposal would create a new level of accountability for school districts, charters and county education offices to identify homeless students. It also would urge more collaboration between local educational agencies and programs that serve foster or unhoused youths.

Schools have improved over the years at providing for homeless and foster care students, Quirk-Silva said, but more should be done to ensure that no one is falling through the cracks.

For example, while students may be able to enlist help from a parent when applying for college and filling out FAFSA and other financial aid forms, foster care or unhoused students may not have those resources at home. Her bill would make sure schools are helping those students who wish to fill out FAFSA or California Dream Act applications by requiring that schools submit any student-requested opt-out forms to their foster youth services coordinating program.

It also enables those programs to provide tutoring or mentoring to a student if needed.

“Some of it is identifying …. and being very intentional about knowing who is sitting in the seats in the school district and making sure (schools are) doing that extra step to reach out to them and guide them along the path,” Quirk-Silva said.

“The whole goal here is to continue that liaison between foster care students and the local agencies,” she added.

Districts are still underreporting homeless students, she said. This means those students aren’t able to receive “specialized assistance mandated by law.”

While the state faces a large budget deficit, the bill is meant to streamline existing programs not add to any school district’s expenses, Quirk-Silva said.

“Fiscal concerns should not hinder our state’s (providing) services to foster youth and those experiencing homelessness,” Quirk-Silva said in the bill’s analysis. “It is precisely during these times that we must think creatively to ensure that the allocated funding and resources are used optimally for the benefit of these students.”

The bill recently drew unanimous approval from the Assembly Education Committee. It is supported by Orange Coast College’s Guardian Scholars program, which provides support for students who have experience in foster or juvenile justice systems, as well as various other youth organizations. There is no opposition on file as of yet.

In other news

• The Senate Public Safety Committee gave the OK to SB1416, a bill from Sen. Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, that would enhance penalties for someone who is involved in the selling of stolen goods, also called fencing. Someone convicted of moving merchandise procured through retail theft could face one to four additional years in prison, depending on the value of the stolen goods, under the bill’s provisions. The bill is part of legislators’ “Safer California” plan, a group of priority bills meant to tackle both retail theft and the fentanyl crisis.

• Sen. Catherine Blakespear’s bill to streamline regulation of the rail corridor that runs from San Diego to San Luis Obispo won approval last week from the Senate Transportation Committee. The Encinitas Democrat held working groups throughout the legislative off time to brainstorm how the rail corridor — which is often blocked because of landslides — could be better managed.

Source: Orange County Register