Seed for Thought

Thu, 05/27/2010 - 08:47 | Point of Policy

May is coming to a close, and since 1988 it has been recognized as National Foster Care Month. Thus I thought it would be a good idea to discuss foster care youth and their completion of high school, or their lack there of. In Washington state high school graduation rates between 2005-2008 for foster youth ranged from 38% - 44%, compared with non foster youth, with graduation rates from 71% - 74%. This is obviously a huge problem.
 
Switching gears for a moment, I recently learned of The SEED Foundation. This is a school that was started in Washington D.C. in 1998; it’s a boarding school and admits students from low income, urban areas, by a lottery system. Students grades 6-12 live at the school during the week, and go home on the weekends. It is a safe environment, nurturing, highly structured, contains rigorous curriculum, and teaches life skills. This program has proven to be extremely successful; they claim to have 97% of their graduates admitted to 4 year universities and 90% immediately enroll in Universities.
 
In my experience working with this population, the SEED Foundation sounds exactly like what our foster youth need. The repeated movement from placement drastically disrupts their schooling emotionally and many times physically, as they must change schools. If foster youth could participate in a program like SEED and have a highly structured, consistent M-F week could make all the difference in graduation rates.
 
Currently working in South King County, assisting low income youth obtain their GEDs; I am appalled by the waiting list hundreds of names long, of students who just want to earn their GED because high school, for one reason or another just did not work for them. My fantasy is that some day Seattle/South King County will someday have a program such as the SEED Foundation and ensure that a large percentage of the students included in the lottery are foster youth.
 
Lisa I.
MSW Student at UW
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