Committee on Education hears DCF: foster-care population down, academic gaps narrowing but data and placement challenges remain

The House Committee on Education on an unnamed date heard the Department for Children and Families present its annual foster care report card, which showed the state’s foster population at “around or under about 5,600 youth,” a level the department described as the lowest in roughly 12 years.

Rebecca Gerhardt, director of permanency and licensing for the Department for Children and Families, told the committee the report includes new comparison data gathered with the Kansas State Department of Education and that the agency has added sex and race/ethnicity breakdowns at stakeholders’ request. “We are, around or under about 5,600 youth who are experiencing a need for foster care which is the lowest number of youth we've had experiencing that need in about 12 years,” Gerhardt said.

Committee members and Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) officials said the numbers show progress but flagged continuing gaps and technical and procedural obstacles that complicate schools’ ability to support students who move between placements.

Gerhardt highlighted several positive trends in the report. The graduation gap between students in foster care and the statewide student population narrowed from about 24 percentage points to about 20 points. The foster-care dropout rate fell from about 5.1% to 3.9%, and the gap with the general population fell from about 3.5 points to about 2.6 points. Attendance gaps are smaller: overall attendance for students in foster care was within about 3 percentage points of peers statewide, and the gap for Black…