Committee advances bill to expand Promise Scholarship eligibility for adopted and foster-family children amid questions over attendance-zone change

The House Education Committee voted to give a due-pass recommendation to Senate Bill 152, a substitute that would expand eligibility in the Georgia Promise Scholarship to adopted children who previously were in foster care and to biological children of foster parents.

Sponsor and committee testimony said the substitute would “move them to the front of the line,” giving adoptive children and biological children of foster parents priority in the Promise Scholarship enrollment process, while also changing how attendance-zone eligibility is applied.

The bill’s sponsor said the measure as passed by the Senate expands the Promise Scholarship in section 3 to include adopted foster children and biological children of foster parents who have taken foster placements in the past 10 years. The sponsor told the committee he and the Senate…