Credit: John C. Osborn/EdSource Today

Credit: John C. Osborn/EdSource Today

Customs colleges already offer support services for disadvantaged students through Extended Opportunity Programs and Services, a state-funded program. Senate Pecker 1023, past Sen. Ballad Liu (D-Glendale), would allow community colleges to establish a supplemental component of the program just for foster students. Colleges would have to employ to the organisation'southward Board of Governors for the funds.

"There is a clear demand to have some additional support services for foster youth at the college level," said Robert Oakes, legislative director for Liu. "They consistently seem to be at a disadvantage."

The funding could be used to provide academic, career and mental health counseling; to monitor academic progress; and to requite tutoring and mentoring support. Funds could likewise be allocated to teach contained living skills and for housing assistance, child care, transportation, books and supplies.

SB 1023 would let foster youth and erstwhile foster youth under the age of 26 to receive these services even if they took only 9 units a semester instead of the usual Extended Opportunity Programs and Services requirement for 12 units. It would besides require colleges to submit a biennial report describing their efforts to serve those students.

The pecker complements new state efforts to provide extra support to K-12 students in foster care. Under the new school finance system, more funds are allocated to foster students as a group, and beginning in 2014-fifteen, districts will be required to gear up academic goals for them. Each year, virtually 4,000 foster youth are emancipated or "age out" of the foster intendance system. Offset in 2014, foster youth tin can keep in the arrangement upwards to age 21 if they encounter sure conditions. One of those conditions is beingness enrolled in a postsecondary or vocational education institution.

SB 1023 is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Teaching Committee on March 26.

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