Read Part II here
"The Main Issue"
In our Foster Parenting classes we were told that if a child was brought into our home, he or she would attend the school in the District in which we lived. For us, that would be Mt. Zion schools. Obviously, the system tries to find a Foster home located in the child's school area but if that is not possible, he or she would switch schools to wherever the new Foster parents resided. Therefore, when N was dropped off Nathan didn't think much about it when the DCFS worker mentioned a Decatur School. He just thought to himself that the child would be switching schools & didn't say anything. Fast forward to Saturday when I was talking to a DCFS Investigator on the phone & she mentions N's school. We had a lengthy conversation regarding this & thus "The Main Issue" was born. I find out that because N moved to our area recently from out-of-state & started at this school the week before he entered our care, there is a clause or rule with DCFS that he must finish the year at said school. They do not want the kids hopping from school to school - - which I totally understand. We were just not aware of this said clause or we would've said from the get-go Thursday that we could not transport & if accomodations weren't made we would be unable to care for N. She is very short with me & mentions that she is currently transporting 2 children to a school about 20 minutes away. I then say, "You don't understand. I leave home at 6:30 for work & Nathan doesn't get off work until 7 a.m. N would have no one to care for him for that 30 minutes." Finally, she gets it. We then find out that N gets out of school at 1:50 in the afternoon. {Crazy early!} I mention that Nathan wakes around 4 so after-school care needs to be arranged. She is surprised to hear that we didn't already have this set-up. I remind her that we thought the child would go to school in our district & we have before & after school set-up in Mt. Zion, just not in Decatur. That is when I (& she) realize that this situation regarding school is not what we thought. Yes, there's only a month left of school (at the time) but it is still a major issue for a month. After discussing the entire events of Saturday with Nathan, including the school situation, we realized that we have quite the dilemma to deal with. That is basically when we made the decision that the following Monday we would have to let DCFS know that N would need a different placement due to the circumstances regarding his schooling. Unfortunately, we couldn't picture -in our minds- how this would all come together for N to be able to remain in his current school while living in our home.
Stay tuned for: Foster Adventures: Part IV "What's next?"
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