If you have a 3 or 4 year old in your Foster Care home in Texas, that child is eligible for free Pre-K through the local school district. Some school districts begin the program at age three and some at age 4; check your district’s website to discover the age limits for your school district. Age eligibility in Texas is always calculated by the child’s age on September 1 so if your district offers Pre-K to 3-year-olds, your child will be eligible at the start of the next school year following her third birthday. Children do not start mid year if they would not have been old enough on September 1.
The only caveat is that once a child has been enrolled in Pre-K, they become subject to mandatory enrollment laws. If you need to take them out of school for an extended period, you will have to terminate their enrollment formally.
Chidren who have ever been in the state foster care or are currently in foster care are eligible for free prekindergarten. Yes, this includes children who have been returned to their original families and children who have been adopted from foster care. Once a child qualifies through the foster care clause they remain qualified! Pre-K is a great idea for foster kids and former foster kids because it gives them access to early educational intervention for such things as speech therapy, identification of learning disabilities. Pre-K also helps ease kids into school life, especially important to little ones whose early emotional development has been interrupted by foster care.
From the Texas Education Agency (TEA) website, I discovered that these documents are proof of ID for enrollment purposes:
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Birth Certificate;
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Passport;
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School ID card, records, or report card;
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Military ID;
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Hospital birth record;
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Adoption records;
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Church baptismal record; or
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Any other legal document that establishes identity.
My son’s school was insisting on a birth certificate, which I did not have at that time as he was then a foster child. I took in a print out of the TEA page which stated the above documents and they then had to accept his foster care placement documents as proof. The person you deal with at the school may not have been fully informed by whomever trained them; take proof!
If you live a certain distance from the school, the district is required to provide transportation. For Pre-K, they often come right to your front door. Be sure to ask.
This information is available on the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and Texas DFPS websites. It’s easier to find via web search on the TEA site.
Photo credit: Dreena T
