[high5tou]

It's me again....... Does anyone else on this board homeschool? I was curious as to how the agency and DHS feel about this. We have homeschooled for 4 years now. My 2nd child has Asperger Syndrome and my Daughter has learning disabilities and possible CAPD and also possible AS.
So I am very familiar with these issues.
Also do we have to foster the child we wish to adopt? I guess I should be reading the adoption laws huh? LOL

High5tou

[TexasJingles]

As far as I know, no, you cannot homeschool a FOSTER child. Don't really know about a pre-adoptive placement. Hmmm, something to look into.

No, you do not HAVE to foster before you adopt.

Here's kind of how it works (and you'll hear more about this at your orientation meeting):

Straight foster -- You and your home is licensed and approved, usually through an agency, by the state. You take placements (sometimes with little notice or background) with the goal of going back to the bio-family. Sometimes this doesn't workout and you may be asked if you'd be interested in adopting them. If not, then you help prepare them for their new adoptive family.

Straight Adoption -- You and your home go through basically the same proceedure to foster (which is why a LOT of homes are duel licensed). Once you are approved, you then start looking at TARE (the Texas photolisting of adoptable, available children in Texas) and other places. You (or your adoption worker) submit your homestudy to the workers of kids you think you'd like, or that your home would be a great match for. When their are at least 3-4 homestudies (could be more) for that child, then they (a committee) sit down and have a "4-way" or a "3-way" or also called a "staffing" to narrow down the selection. If your family is selected, then you are contacted and given more info on the child(ren). If you like what you see, then the visits start. These tend to vary. After visits and things are still going great, then you take pre-adoptive placement (they live with you) and you sign placement paperwork. The child has to live with you for at least 6 months and then you go to court and finalize. If the child qualifies, you will get adoption subsidy.

Now, foster-to-adopt is different in this way... the children are not quiet legally free yet. Sometimes parental rights look like they're going to be terminated and sometimes (like ours) they already have been but are under appeal. You are their foster parents and if everything works out (it's a risk and sometimes you lose), then you get their files with more info and decided if you'd like to adopt them. If they were with you 6 months already as foster, you don't have to wait again to finalize. You are "reimbursed" as their foster parents and if they qualify, transfer over to adoption subsidy when you sign placement paperwork (same paperwork as straight adoption, without the visits though! ).

Ok, that's foster/adoption 101! LOL Bring on the next question!

[high5tou]

Bringing on the next question........

Thanks so much for the info. So to strictly adopt you choose a child and they turn in your homestudy. Then if your a match ( chosen) you start having visits with the child. Once you have the placement are the caseworkers involved anymore? I mean are they yours to make decisions for? Do you have to get your own adoption attorney? You have to wait 6 months from the time of placemement before the adoption right?

Lea

[TexasJingles]

During pre-adoptive placement, there will be cwr visits, and if you're with an agency, they should visit too. They're there to make sure it's going to work out, smooth out any rough spots (be surprised if there aren't any) and get you help if you need it (therapy or whatever).

Ours was not really by the book, so I'm not totally sure on the amount of visits required. We were told that the caseworker would visit once a month (nope) and the agency's adoption placement person would visit say every 2 weeks and then once a month and then at longer intervals (if everything was going ok). That didn't happen either. Didn't have anyone visit (shhhh, don't tell anyone! haha). That's probably because we WERE the kids fosterhome and our agency worker was on maternity leave.

As far as you doing what you want, yes, cut their hair, make the rules, whatever. When we had ours as foster, their parental rights were already terminated (very, very low risk) so we didn't do bio visits or have to ask anyone anything...except if we took them out of the county for more than 72 hours. Hmm...don't know if that travel rule still applied during our pre-adoptive period (we had 2 months, but that was because we wanted to wait for national adoption day...they do a HUGE celebration in Tarrant Cnty).

We found pre-placement time to be a grey zone. No one really knew what was going on. We had one that had an ER visit and are still working on medicaid paying that (pre-adopt changes their last name). Their birthcert. have birthnames, but placement gives you some rights to change that at schools (but not SS). Just red tape, confusion.

And yes, it's minimum 6 months from placement to finalization (they call it consumation).

Lawyer. CPS took care of that because we were doing national adoption day (at least assigning us one). They have a list of lawyers that work with them. All we paid upfront was the filing fees (lawyer worked pro-bono (sp?)) and birth certificate fee (about $300? for one) was just a little more for us (3 birthcert.). Cost depends on where the kids are at though (if we did ours here in houston, we'd pay to transfer it...so, we did it up there).

It's late, I'm tired, so I really hope that makes some sense! LOL I found a few sentences that didn't make it on the screen the way my brain said, so ??? )

[jhtcct]

I'm only on this board occasionally so I'm just seeing your message. We have homeschooled for 12 years and have been foster parents for 4. You cannot homeschool a foster child (which is why we only take babies) but we haven't had a problem with CPS about our homeschooling. We've adopted one child with no problems. HTH

[momofmore]

We adopted through TX and had an excellent adoptive placement social worker who strongly ENCOURAGED homeschooling. She got us a homeschool waiver. She was in Corpus.

[TexasJingles]

momofmore -- I think the loop hole is that you were an adoptive placement. That's what we were trying to figure out. You cannot homeschool foster children, but can you homeschool pre-adoptive placements?

I "think" you can, as you've signed paperwork stating that you're taking custody and last names are changed on that paperwork.

Glad to hear that it's actually happened in the real world though! Thanks!

[LadyBugz]

I asked this question (and the difference between foster and adoptive placements) recently. It isn't an official answer, but three different agencies told me the same thing.

They said that to homeschool foster OR adoptive children (before finalization) that the process is technically simple but often times more difficult than one should expect. You have to petition the state to request their approval to homeschool. One agency said to expect two months or so to get the paperwork through. Sounded like it wasn't *difficult* but just red tape.


MomOfMore,
That's awesome that your SW encouraged it! We have been met with quite a bit of hesitation. Can you work with any social worker you want or must you use the agency's?

[high5tou]

Did they say how this was accomplished? How do you petition the state?
I don't know this to be true but we have chosen a Christian Agency and I am in hopes that that in some way helps. That was not the only reason we chose a christian agency but I hope it will help.

Thanks, Lea

[LadyBugz]

Lea,

I'm afraid they didn't offer any more info. One person was really fine with it and another was obviously not even very happy to have me bring it up (but polite and factual) and the third was just pretty matter-of-fact about it. The matter-of-fact agency was secular and gave the time line. Unfortunately, that was also the one I talked to through voice mail, so I didn't have an opportunity to clarify. The one that was fine and the one that was not so fine were both Christian. Neither seemed to know very much about it, but just that others have done it. I will definitely update when I found out more, though.

[TexasJingles]

The state already pays for public education, which is why they are reluctant to pay more for homeschooling.

The only ones I've heard getting approval for foster kids are the kids that get kicked out of school due to behaviors or other problems where they cannot handle any type of classroom setting.

Not saying it can't happen...I hope it does for those that need it.

I'm a public school band director, so every child that is homeschooled, is a child that can't participate in my program. Fine arts are so important to a well rounded education and sometimes that's the last thing included. At least the state of Texas does recognize this to some extent and says that children have to have fine arts (but took away the mandatory number of minutes each week --- not a good thing).

[LadyBugz]

Originally Posted by TexasJingles

The state already pays for public education, which is why they are reluctant to pay more for homeschooling.

That doesn't make any sense. The state pays a certain amount for every child enrolled in the school. If the child is not in the school, the state is not paying for his/her schooling. If the parents are paying taxes AND the child's tuition and fees at a private school, the state is actually making out great.

Texas' laws recognize homeschooling as a private school. One agency told me I was free to put children in private schools, but not to homeschool. It didn't seem to matter if an accredited homeschool program or umbrella school was used or not. (There are some that do all the corrections, grading, report cards, transcripts, etc so the issue there isn't if the children are getting verifiable educations.)

I just don't understand.

[crikkit]

I was told by our agency (private agency in Houston) that homeschooling was not an option at all for foster children. I wasn't planning to homeschool anyway, so I didn't push the issue to find out if they make an exception for an adoptive placement, or if that was a rule for the agency but not the state, but they seemed to want to make that clear at our very first meeting.

[TexasJingles]

It comes from 2 different state sources (actually, one state and one county). The state will pay for the student to go to a state school (public).

Now, if you homeschool, the state doesn't pay, and then the foster parents want that tuition paid (reimbursed...and perhaps YOU wouldn't, but there are others), and that money is now coming out of the money the county pays and the state won't reimburse them (it's a "it's our department's money not yours").

It's all about who's paying the bill.

As well as, these kids also need to know how to socialize. They need a break from the foster parents. There needs to be more than one adult seeing these kids to prevent abuse like that cages thing.

Ok. I don't agree with all of that, but there ARE people that think this way. Why do you think we have to jump through so darn many hoops to get kids, who are waiting and waiting for us? Laws are made when something goes wrong. Face it, foster care 30 years ago was BAD!!! There were some good people, but there were a lot of others that weren't...and not just foster parents, administrators too.

I applaude you for trying to get through the red tape. I'm just not holding my breath that you'll get the waiver.

[LadyBugz]

Ha ha! TexasJingles, if I start going blue in the face from holding my breath, whop me on the back (or upside the head), OK?

Thanks for the clarification on WHO is paying for the schooling. (My own clarification: the "I just don't understand" was directed toward the bureaucracy, and not you.) I know the socialization and other authority figures argument. It is the one and only argument homeschooling parents ever hear. And it is the least valid argument when the statistics are looked at. LOL! But I do know that it is what others (including some sw/cw types) think of when they hear homeschooling. So thanks for pointing it out.

I've been on a "homeschooling adopted children" list for a little over a year. When the parents have the desire and ability to homeschool, I think it can be a wonderful opportunity to allow bonding to occur. The kiddos see you all day meeting all their needs. That's what happens with infants who are reliant on their parents. That's what didn't happen and led to these kiddos being in the system and many of them not being able to trust and bond appropriately. The adults in their lives were not meeting their needs. In the international adoption boards, there are many posts talking about how long it was "immediate family only" (and there is a huge range of mere seconds to many months presented). I don't have any desire to seclude them, but I do want my husband and myself to be the adults they spend the vast majority of their time with upfront to facilitate that bonding and trust.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to say in the least that others should do it this way. I think that there are tons of families and parenting styles and child personalities and combinations thereof, and there is no one-size-fits-all. But for my family (that is already homeschooling), I think it would by far be the best thing to homeschool from the start.

I'll let you know what the state thinks of that... (ha!)