The consistency of a child’s education is vital to their wellbeing and improvement and requires attention and focus. There are many state and federal laws that address education and the FSFN education tab provides a vehicle to document it all in one place. The pages are used to keep record of the school placement history, current education setting, level of education, reason for changes, child exceptional student education classification and special educational needs, status of surrogate parent, status of the child’s IEP, Diploma, and Certificate Information.

The education tab in FSFN must be completed in its entirety for all children that are of school age or receiving IL services, including Extended Foster Care. The information entered on these pages is used to prepopulate the child’s educational information in the Case Plan and JR Worksheet as well as the IL module.

It is important for the education tab to be updated as changes occur in the child’s education status. The information in FSFN should tell the story of each child’s education, from special needs status to the consistency in educational setting.

Education Tab Reminders for Case Managers:

• Education details must be entered when a case is received by case management. The child’s school information must always be current.
• Case Managers are required to update the appropriate tabs in situations where a child changes school, school ESE placement begins, ends or changes, and when IEPs are put into place, changed, or closed.
• When a child graduates (via GED, Standard Diplomas Traditional, Standard Diplomas Access, or Standard Diploma Employment) the date must be entered in the Diploma and Certification portion of the Education Information Tab.
• The child’s education records must be uploaded into the FSFN case file cabinet by selecting “education” as the image category. Educational records include, but are not limited to, the following: progress reports, report cards, IEPs, diplomas, educational assessments.

What do Case Managers need to do?

As the new school year begins, a new entry must be created.  Pay special attention to the following items in the FSFN education tab for the last school year and for this school year.

Note: If a child attends summer school, it should be recorded as separate entries.  Date school year ends; Date summer school begins; Date summer school ends; Date new school year begins.