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Program could fund money for private schools

Originally published in the Carroll County Times

By Tomas Pagan-Motta
Published on Sunday, July 16, 2006
MPPI IN THE NEWS

Carroll foster children could receive scholarships that will allow them to attend high-quality public or private schools from kindergarten to grade 12 if proposed legislation passes the Maryland General Assembly next year.

The Maryland Public Policy Institute, a nonpartisan public policy research and education organization, drafted a program in 2005 that became the framework behind a law passed in Arizona that grants $5,000 scholarships to foster children looking to attend private schools.

Alison Lake, managing editor at the institute, said the program in Maryland would take existing money from the state budget to provide $8,000 scholarships to foster children looking to attend public or private schools.

"It will give them some degree of educational stability," Lake said. "It is an uphill battle in Maryland, though."

Lake said that the measure must be sponsored by a sufficient number of legislators before it has any chance of being adopted.

She said the institute is also planning on getting officials from different social service departments to look at the program, as well as members of the general public.

"We will be setting up focus groups in Baltimore city within the coming months," she said.

There were 55 foster-care children enrolled in Carroll County public schools through the 2005-06 school year, said Dana Falls, director of student services for Carroll County public schools.

Falls said schools work with foster children from Carroll who might have lived with their parents in one school district and now live with a foster family in another district.

"Typically, we do our best to work with the foster family in keeping the child in the same school in those cases," Falls said.

But scholarships are not given, and most of Carroll's foster children come from other counties, Falls said.

Foster families receive a stipend, an estimated $660 a month to care for a foster child.

Susan Beard, foster-care worker at the foster care and adoption unit at Carroll's Department of Social Services, said she has heard of scholarship programs for foster kids to go to Maryland state universities and community colleges.

"I believe that children in care for a certain period of time are eligible for college tuition to be paid for," Beard said.

Reach staff writer Tomas Pagan-Motta at 410-857-7890 or tmotta@lcniofmd.com.