The Brief

More than 51,339 children and youth in California have an open case in the child welfare system, according to the most recent point-in-time count.

Many come under supervision of their county Department of Children and Family Services after a reported allegation of child neglect or maltreatment, including physical abuse, sexual abuse, exploitation or emotional abuse; for others, it happens when a parent voluntarily requests support, often due to a child’s behavioral challenges.

Children in an out-of-home placement in the child welfare system have access to particular educational rights. This is meant to ensure stability for them during a time of uncertainty.

A child under the supervision of the Department of Children and Family Services often comes into contact with multiple individuals. Depending on the details of their case, this could include social workers, child advocates, police officers, detectives, attorneys, judges and others. If they are removed from their home, they might be placed in foster care. While not all youth in the child welfare system are in foster care, all foster youth are in the child welfare system.

“When these rights were established, the purpose was to keep children in some kind of consistency, some kind of security, or something that felt just familiar to them,” said Jessica Gonzalez, youth justice program manager at CASA/LA, a national organization of court-appointed special advocates for youth in the child welfare system. CASA volunteers are sometimes appointed as educational rights holders for children. Even when they are not, they often advocate for education rights to be enforced, Gonzalez said.

A child’s case might also enter the juvenile dependency court. While the primary goal for youth in dependency court is to “preserve the family” by keeping a child either in the home of their parent or a relative, they might be placed in foster care or adopted.

Child welfare cases are complex, and outcomes depend on a multitude of factors, including the caretaking ability of a parent, whether a relative is able to take in the child, if an appeal is filed, and more.

This story includes information on whom the educational rights apply to as well as general insight into some of these rights. Many were implemented with the enactment of AB 490 in 2003 yet remain difficult to understand for many families due to the complexity of the child welfare system.

How many children are in the child welfare system?

There were 51,339 children and youth with an open case as of April 1. The count was published by the California Child Welfare Indicators Project, a data and technical assistance collaboration between the University of California at Berkeley and the California Department of Social Services.

This point-in-time count includes those who are under the age of 1 up to age 21 and who have “an open child welfare or probation supervised placement episode” in California’s Child Welfare Services/Case Management System. The count peaked in 2016, with nearly 63,000 open cases. The lowest number of open cases occurred this year.

Allegations of child maltreatment are much higher, however; between April 2022 and April 2023, there were more than 442,000 reported allegations.

Which children in the system have access to particular educational rights?

Youth in the child welfare system and in an out-of-home placement have access to specific educational rights. An out-of-home placement can include foster homes, group homes, shelters and hotels through the Department of Children and Family Services, and other similar placements.

The purpose of these rights is to accommodate the child’s education as much as possible during a time of instability.

What are some of the educational rights for those in the child welfare system?

A child in the welfare system and in an out-of-home placement has access to the following rights, among others:

• School stability. This includes the right to remain enrolled at their school of origin, which is the school they were enrolled in at the time their child welfare case began, and the right to be transported to that school.
• Enrichment access. Youth have the right to access the same type of enrichment activities as their peers. This can include academic resources and extracurricular activities.
• Placement in the least restrictive setting. Students have the right to be placed in the academic setting that’s least restrictive, or least strictly controlled, for them to be able to achieve academic progress and success.
• Immediate enrollment. Regardless of whether a student has all the enrollment documents ready, or has had contact with the juvenile justice system, or has any outstanding fees — they have the right to be immediately enrolled in school.

Each of the rights above are nuanced and dependent on each child’s case and the decisions of their educational rights holder.

Additional information for families and children can be found by contacting the county Foster Youth Services Coordinating Program (each county’s contact can be found here) or at the California Foster Youth Education Task Force.

What does it mean to place a child in the ‘least restrictive’ academic setting?

While a least restrictive academic setting depends on age and whether a student has disabilities, it’s often considered the academic environment that’s least strictly controlled.

For a high school student, the least restrictive setting might be a traditional public school where students walk from one classroom to another on their own, with sports and special events such as prom and field trips. A more restrictive academic setting is often a nonpublic school that provides a more strictly controlled environment in an effort to assist students who have specific behavioral, emotional or academic needs.

As Gonzalez described, students are often pushed out to a more restrictive setting if they exhibit ongoing behavioral challenges — which, she says, are often a result of trauma in that child’s life.

But students “have the right to be in a setting they feel safe in, they feel comfortable in, and they’re able to learn in,” Gonzalez said. “And so, if the child has demonstrated that they’re able to do this in a very restrictive setting, we have to give that student the opportunity to then be able to practice those skills in a less restrictive setting.”

Who holds the educational rights for youth in the child welfare system?

Every child has an educational rights holder with decision-making authority regarding their education. A parent often continues having the right to make educational and developmental decisions for their child even if they lose physical custody. Biological parents lose educational decision-making power only if they are explicitly limited or restricted by the juvenile court, if parental rights have been terminated (i.e., the child is up for adoption), or if the child is in a legal guardianship.

Parents “are not always encouraged to continue to be a part of their child’s educational journey, so a lot of times what we do as CASA when we’re appointed to a case is facilitate that engagement with a parent to preserve their involvement in the child’s education,” Gonzalez said.

Most often, organizations like CASA encourage relatives to hold educational rights. This is because once a child welfare case is closed, CASA is no longer the rights holder. Advocating for the biological parents or other relatives to remain as educational rights holders helps provide continuity in the child’s life, according to Gonzalez.

In the absence of parents or relatives, the educational rights holder role is often filled by a court-appointed special advocate, which is where CASA’s name comes from.

The person assigned as the educational rights holder is entitled to have “all of the educational decision-making rights normally held by a parent or guardian,” according to a recent fact sheet compiled by the California Foster Youth Education Task Force.

How are educational decisions made?

All educational decisions should be made with the child’s best interest in mind.

For example, a child can remain in their school of origin if they prefer to. But if they’ve been placed far from that school and they would need to spend hours on the road to reach it, then it may be in their best interest to be enrolled in a new school.

The educational rights holder can request a best-interest determination meeting that would include school district personnel, such as the school psychologist, before finalizing any educational decisions.

How can an educational rights holder avoid roadblocks in advocating for a child?

While educational rights are outlined, the rights holder may experience roadblocks in enforcing them.

For example, information about a child, like academic assessments and individualized education programs, might not have yet been finalized at their school of origin and a new educational rights holder might face pushback from the new school.

In such cases, children, their families and educational rights holders can contact an education attorney through the Educational Advocacy Unit at the Children’s Law Center. If the child is also in the juvenile justice system, they can contact a juvenile resource attorney through the public defender’s office.

A significant barrier is that while foster youth liaisons at schools are designated staff members who support students in the child welfare system, they are often overwhelmed by the number of students they serve.

Gonzalez said, “It’s a lot of just constantly showing up to the school, advocating, contacting, emailing, you know, all of those follow-ups to make sure that we’re getting the right support for each child that we serve.”

Take accountability and move forward.

Those were the two points Los Angeles Fire Chief Jaime Moore hit repeatedly when speaking with LAist’s Larry Mantle this week.

On taking accountability, Moore said hazardous conditions and decisions made before the Palisades Fire erupted a year ago meant “our firefighters never had a chance” to arrest the fire that killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of structures.

On moving forward, he emphasized that reform is already in the works.

“Things have changed since the Palisades Fire, and we're going to continue making big changes in the Los Angeles Fire Department,” said Moore, who was selected for the LAFD top job by Mayor Karen Bass in November.

Here are three takeaways from the interview, which aired on AirTalk on Tuesday.

1. Staffing decisions hampered fire response

The LAFD uses a so-called pre-deployment matrix to set firefighter staffing levels ahead of high-risk weather.

According to the department’s after-action report, however, staffing levels on the day the Palisades Fire began fell short of the LAFD standard for extreme weather conditions. The National Weather Service had warned of low humidity, high winds and dry vegetation, what it calls a “particularly dangerous situation.” It’s the highest level of alert the agency can give.

Despite the high risk, the LAFD report said the decision not to deploy more firefighters in advance was in part made to save money.

Moore said Monday that the department has updated its policies to increase staffing for especially hazardous conditions, but he said he doesn’t believe additional resources would have stopped a fire of the magnitude that leveled the Palisades.

To suppress that kind of fire, he said, the department would need to pre-deploy resources across the city’s vast geography — to places like Baldwin Hills, Franklin Canyon, the Hollywood Hills, the Palisades, Porter Ranch and Sunland-Tujunga.

Moore said the department has already made new policies to call for more resources when the Weather Service issues a “particularly dangerous situation” alert.

2. LAFD is mostly an urban firefighting department

Moore referenced a key finding of the after-action report regarding a lack of training in wildland firefighting, which contributed to confusion and struggles to effectively utilize resources during the fire.

Wildland fires pose a number of challenges that are different from what firefighters face in urban environments. Those include the need to coordinate a large number of resources over vast areas, all while dealing with fast-moving flames that can rapidly tear through dry plants and structures.

The department found in its report that fewer firefighters were trained in fighting these wildland fires in recent years and that “leaders struggled to comprehend their roles.”

Some leaders in the department had “limited or no experience in managing an incident of such complexity,” the report said. And some reverted to doing the work of lower positions, leaving high-level decision-making positions unfilled.

“What we're doing now is really furthering that training and reinforcing that education with our firefighters so that they could be better prepared,” Moore said on AirTalk.

3. Changes to the after-action report

Early versions of the after-action report differed from the version released to the public in October, a fact that was first reported by the Los Angeles Times. The Times also reported that Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, who wrote the report, wouldn’t endorse the final version because of the changes.

Moore acknowledged to the L.A. Board of Fire Commissioners at a Jan. 6 meeting that the report had been watered down.

“It is now clear that multiple drafts were edited to soften language and reduce explicit criticism of department leadership in that final report,” Moore told the commissioners. “This editing occurred prior to my appointment as fire chief, and I can assure you that nothing of this sort will ever again happen while I am fire chief."

Some changes were small but telling. A section titled “Failures” later became “Primary Challenges.”

Moore told LAist that changes between versions “ made it easier for the public to understand,” but an LAist review found the edits weren’t all surface-level.

In the first version of the report, the department said the decision not to fully pre-deploy all available resources for the particularly dangerous wind event “did not align” with their guidelines for such extreme weather cases. The final version said that the initial response “lacked the appropriate resources,” removing the reference to department standards.

The department also removed some findings that had to do with communications.

One sentence from the initial version of the report said: “Most companies lacked a basic briefing, leader’s intent, communications plan, or updated fire information for more than 36 hours.” That language was removed from the final report.

LAist has asked the Fire Department for clarification about why these assertions were removed but did not receive a response before time of publication.

Olympic organizers announced Tuesday that registration to buy tickets will run through March 18, with sales beginning in April. LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover said that locals will get the first bite at the apple.

The registration period opens 7 a.m. Wednesday.

" Our host city communities here in Los Angeles and Oklahoma City will have the opportunity to be a part of a local presale," Hoover said outside the Coliseum while surrounded by Olympic athletes from Games past. "With our thanks and as part of our commitment to making sure that those who live and work around the games, where the games will take place, can be in the stands and cheer in 2028."

Olympic organizers also provided more details on ticket prices for the first time. One million tickets will sell for $28 a pop and around a third of tickets will be under $100, according to LA28 Chair Casey Wasserman.

That means the majority of tickets to the Olympic Games will run into triple digits. If the World Cup is any indication, some tickets could get astronomically pricey.

Interested fans can go to LA28.org to register. Those who are selected will get an email with a time slot to purchase tickets.

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors took a step toward banning ICE from unlawfully operating on county-owned property and to post signage designating those spaces as “ICE Free Zones.”

The board unanimously approved the motion at Tuesday’s meeting, directing staff to draft the policy.

The draft could include requirements for county employees to report to their supervisor if they see unauthorized immigration activity on county property.

The city of Los Angeles passed a similar order last July, which strengthened protocols that prohibit ICE from operating on city-owned property. The agenda staff report points to an “ICE Free Zone” ordinance passed by the city of Chicago in October.

Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Hilda Solis co-authored the motion.

Horvath said the county will not allow its property to be used as “a staging ground for violence caused by the Trump administration."

Solis added that their action as a board could have a ripple effect on other city councils and local governments.

“Even though it's taken us this long to get here …I think it's really important for our communities to understand what we're saying is you don't have the right to come in and harass people without a federal warrant,” Solis said. “And if you use our property to stage, then you need to show us documentation as to why.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in an X post that the county cannot exclude federal agents from public spaces.

"Anyone who attempts to impede our agents will be arrested and charged, including county employees," Essayli said in the post. "We have already charged more than 100 individuals for similar conduct."

Since June, ICE raids have ramped up across the nation, heavily targeting certain immigrant communities like those in Los Angeles.

The motion directs the draft to include language that prohibits all types of ICE operations on county land, including staging and mobilizing without a warrant.

The motion cites an incident on Oct. 8, when county officials say federal agents raided the Deane Dana Friendship Park and Nature Center in San Pedro, arresting three people and threatening to arrest staff.

The motion also requires that the county post 'Ice Free Zone' signage on all of its properties.

Sergio Perez, executive director of the Center of Human Rights and Constitutional Law, told LAist the policy is enforceable under Fourth Amendment case law.

“You have to make sure that when you post that signage … that means that you routinely, or semi-routinely, assess who's coming in to the property, so that you can control access,” Perez said. “But if ICE shows up with a warrant, with a subpoena, then all bets are off, and they can enter into the property and do what they need to do.”

Perez said the county has moved “incredibly” slow on this issue.

“It's embarrassing that the county is moving six months later, given how we've been facing violent, aggressive, invasive and illegal raids now for so long here in Southern California,” Perez said, adding that local governments have not been fast or creative enough in protecting immigrant and refugee communities.

The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, one of the region’s largest immigrant advocacy groups, supports the motion.

"We do not want our county resources being used for federal immigration enforcement activities, which disrupt, uproot, and terrorize our communities,” Jeannette Zanipatin, policy director for CHIRLA, said in a statement. “It is important for all public spaces to be really safe for all residents.”

County staff have 30 days to draft a plan to implement the new policy.