Each morning before school, Latisha Alvarado Barrington and her younger brother packed an extra set of clothes in their backpacks because they were unsure where they would sleep that night.
Often, they would not want to go at all for fear of being taken again.
Latisha guarded her identity as a foster child. She was fearful of the stigma as she bounced among a dozen placements, at times because her foster parents thought she was too much to handle.
The despair of falling behind caused her to lay her head on the desk and think of school as pointless.
Public officials and child advocates in Colorado have long known that students in foster care lag behind academically but have lacked the data to quantify it, a necessary step for finding solutions.
Now, new research involving an unusual merging of information from two state agencies paints a distressing picture: Children in Colorado’s foster care system are far less likely to graduate from high school than other at-risk populations — including homeless students.
Just 27.5 percent of public school foster care students in the class of 2013 graduated on time, compared with 77 percent of all students, according to statistics from the state Department of Education and Department of Human Services published last week. About half of homeless students graduated with their class.
A deeper look at five years of data by University of Northern Colorado researcher Elysia Clemens found persistent problems:
• Fewer than 1 in 3 Colorado students who were in foster care during high school graduated within four years of starting.
• The gap between foster care children and the overall population is widening as the graduation rates of all Colorado students have grown and foster care students’ rates remain flat.
• About 1 in 11 students in foster care drop out of school at least once, but dropout rates are declining, a rare bright spot in the research.
• Foster care students dropped out earlier than students facing other challenges, an indication that earlier intervention could help.
The hope is that the bleak statistics will offer clues for helping students who not only must overcome tough backgrounds — most are in the system because of abuse or neglect, and many are poor — but also a flawed system that forces them to move constantly and doesn’t provide the support given to other high-risk students.
“We have a lot of work to do,” said Julie Krow, director of the Department of Human Services’ Office of Children, Youth and Families. “I’m glad we have the data we have now. With that baseline, we can seek to work together to move the needle in the right direction.”
About three years ago, Mile High United Way began a conversation with the state agencies to better address educational needs of foster youth. That led to a $1.5 million commitment from the Morgridge Family Foundation, the hiring of a state coordinator for foster child education and an agreement to share the data.
There’s no way to measure how Colorado ranks nationally because apples-to-apples comparisons don’t exist, said Clemens, the UNC professor. Very few states have conducted such research, she said.
Former foster care youth and advocates say instability is perhaps the greatest barrier to academic success. The study found foster children had the state’s highest mobility rates, meaning they moved in or out of school outside of the normal rhythm of the academic calendar.
The mobility rate for foster care students was 42 percent, compared with 16 percent for all students.
“That is one of the greatest policy implications,” said Rebecca Holmes, an associate commissioner for the Education Department. “What can be done to help students in foster care have more continuity of school settings? And when that can’t happen, what can we do to address transfers and credits?”
At age 4, Emily Samora was taken from her drug-addicted birth mother and put into foster care.
So began a rocky path. She was adopted and given up again, placed back in the system. She was expelled from school after getting busted for possession of marijuana with the intent to distribute. She graduated from an all-girls high school that doubled as a residential treatment home.
“One of the biggest struggles in my journey was it was really choppy, getting transferred from place to place to place, trying to go from one subject to another subject and not knowing what they are teaching you,” Samora said. “You could go from pre-algebra in one school and you go to another school and they’ll be on something like advanced algebra.”
Samora is now 26, raising a 3-year-old daughter, living in an apartment subsidized by a United Way voucher and starting work for a program helping foster care youth.
Foster care children also lack the transportation help given homeless children through federal law, said Brian Brinkerhoff, executive director of Denver CASA, which advocates for children in the court system.
SPECIAL REPORT: Trying to live, trying to learn
The McKinney-Vento Act of 1987 requires schools to enroll homeless children immediately, even if they lack normally required documents, and ensures that youth have transportation to school.
Fostering Connections, federal legislation approved in 2008, puts the obligation of providing school transportation to foster care youth on counties. But Brinkerhoff and others say the law is not as strong as it could be and vague about who is responsible for paying the bill.
More broadly, Brinkerhoff said agencies and advocates tend to naturally focus on emergency needs for such high-risk kids — housing, clothing and food.
“What happens is education is sometimes not always as front and center because the basic needs are so demanding and important,” he said.
The research has yet to look at whether students do any better or worse academically in different settings. For instance, Colorado ranks near the top nationally in percentage of foster care children in group homes. Advocates say that could hurt academic results because it’s generally ideal to put children in homes with loving parents.
The data also could signal a need for more foster homes. According to the latest figures, Colorado has 2,173, down from 2,573 in 2011.
Looking more closely at the numbers is among the next steps. There are also plans to involve foster care youth in developing strategies to improve academic achievement, officials said.
For Latisha Alvarado Barrington, the girl who thought school was pointless, the barriers did not prove insurmountable.
She was placed in foster care at age 8 after authorities found her and her siblings home alone in a filthy house with rotten food.
From ages 8 to 12, she drifted through 12 foster homes before being adopted. All the while, she kept her foster care status to herself.
“It was bittersweet,” said Barrington, now 21. “I didn’t want them to lower the bar for me. All the different stigmas that come with being a foster kid, I wanted nothing to do with. For other kids, they might benefit.”
The state does not require school districts to collect information on foster care status, said the Education Department’s Holmes. Some counties report that information to school districts, but district policies on who gets access to that vary or policies are nonexistent, she said.
Barrington got a big boost from finding stability in a single home and a solid college-preparatory program. Now a student at the University of Colorado Denver, she has plans for nursing school.
“Education is obviously important, and it changed my path in life,” she said. “If it wasn’t for school, I wouldn’t be as well-rounded as I am. Or as successful or articulate. Or wanting to be better than my past.”
Eric Gorski: 303-954-1971, egorski@denverpost.com or twitter.com/egorski
