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Public commenter urges district program to support students in foster care
Summary
During public comment at the Bremen CHSD 228 meeting, a speaker described foster‑care statistics for Illinois and Cook County, said foster children face frequent school moves and lower academic outcomes, and proposed a district program to train staff and support foster students.
During the public comment period at the Bremen Community High School District 228 Board of Education meeting, a resident described the educational challenges faced by students in foster care and urged the district to consider a program to support those students.
“So there are right now in Illinois, there are 19,480 youth in foster care,” the commenter said. The speaker provided additional figures: “just the Cook's suburb, there are 2,175 kids. In Cook County itself, in the city, there is 2,416. So that's right around 4,500 kids just in Cook County.” The commenter said licensed foster homes in the area number “7,380.”
The speaker summarized research and observations about educational disruption for foster youth, saying children in care often move multiple times and face challenges in school. “On average though, a child who is in foster care will move around 8 times,” the commenter said, and later added, “75 percent of students in here are performing below grade level,” and that “47 percent of you in here receive special education services.”
The public commenter said their goal was to create a program to collaborate with schools “to be able to help teachers and, professionals and really all staff to be able to best support our students that are in foster care.” The speaker said the program would include training for school staff, guidance about who may participate in meetings such as IEPs, and education about foster‑home roles. The commenter also urged the community to recruit more foster homes.
The remarks were made during the meeting's public comment period and were not presented as a board proposal; the transcript does not record a district response, a board directive, or any formal action tied to the comments.
