A new legislative commission studying graduation rates and other ways to increase academic success for students in foster care held its first meeting on Aug. 13, 2025 in Providence at the Rhode Island State House. (Screenshot/Capitol TV)
Rhode Island’s foster kids had a high school graduation rate of 43% in 2024 — the lowest in the state, lower even than students experiencing homelessness. A new legislative study commission is looking for ways to change that.
It was “not a large cohort” of foster kids who could have graduated last year, said Rep. Julie Casimiro, a North Kingstown Democrat, at the commission’s inaugural meeting Wednesday.
“It was 178 students,” Casimiro continued. “If we can’t get it right for 178 students to graduate with a high school education, then we’re not doing our job.”
The number represents a downward slide from the 2023 graduation data, when 51% of foster kids graduated.
The 17-member volunteer panel — officially titled the Special Legislative Commission to Study Educational Outcomes for Children in State Care — was created through a resolution passed in May by the Rhode Island House of Representatives. Rep. Marie Hopkins, a Warwick Republican, is also on the commission, plus a mix of state officials, educators, and child welfare advocates. Casimiro, who sponsored the legislation to create the committee, chairs the group. Jeannine Nota-Masse, the superintendent of Cranston Public Schools, is the vice chair.
The commission is charged with creating a final report for the General Assembly by July 1, 2026, and then dissolves on Aug. 15, 2026.
An analysis of state education department data in the 2025 Rhode Island KIDS COUNT factbook shows that the average four-year graduation rate was 84%, or nearly double the rate at which foster youth graduated. Students experiencing homelessness, which comprised 227 youth in all, also graduated at higher rates than foster kids at 59%.
Students living in foster care also had the highest dropout rate in the state at 26%.
Those numbers aren’t all that different from national averages: According to the National Foster Youth Institute, about 50% of foster kids graduate high school, compared to their peers who aren’t in state care. Those challenges can continue into postsecondary education, with the institute citing research that notes only about 3% to 4% of former foster kids acquire a four-year college degree.
In a 2024 study published in the journal Remedial and Special Education, the study’s sample of foster students averaged a 41% chronic absenteeism rate, compared to 26% for non-foster students. Foster students also failed courses at higher rates, averaging about five across their time in high school, and earned fewer credits. These numbers were even higher for foster students who had disabilities.
Comparable to other states or not, Casimiro said the state’s graduation numbers were “beyond dreadful” — and also tinged with a sense of déjà vu, since the state had previously formed a study commission to study educational outcomes for foster youth in 2012.
“I don’t know what’s not happening,” Casimiro said. “The adults in the room need to get their act together and work on doing better for this cohort of kids. We should be able to get this right. It’s Rhode Island.”
‘All he did was sleep’
David Sienko, the director of the Rhode Island Department of Education’s (RIDE) Office of Student, Community and Academic Supports, told his fellow panel members that the state’s data collection on foster youth has improved since that 2012 commission, with stronger linkage between RIDE and the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF), which oversees foster care in the state.
That includes a data dashboard for educators which tracks foster kids and is meant to help school administrators support these students. DCYF now verifies this data, and the “mechanics of the data system” have gotten more sophisticated in recent years, Sienko said. But he also acknowledged that the data is only valuable if people use it.
“If I’m a superintendent and I have two kids in my district that are in state care, what does that mean for me?” Sienko said. “What do I do as an educational leader to put those supports in place?’”
Casimiro added that a survey conducted on schools’ use of this information saw only 15 districts respond.
“Some have the database in front of them, the superintendents, but they’re not sharing it at the building level, and that’s where decisions are being made about these kids,” Casimiro said.
The adults in the room need to get their act together and work on doing better for this cohort of kids. We should be able to get this right. It’s Rhode Island.
– Rep. Julie Casimiro, a North Kingstown Democrat
Part of the confusion may come from the fact that administrators can be unaware that kinship care — placement with relatives or close family friends — is legally considered foster care in Rhode Island. That doesn’t mean it has any less impact on kids, Casimiro shared an anecdote about a 17-year-old boy from North Kingstown she knows and has been working with. The boy’s mom lives in Atlanta and his dad is “in and out of prison in Maryland,” Casimiro said.
“He lives with his aunt, who works two jobs, and his sister just died of a fentanyl overdose,” Casimiro continued. “This kid is traumatized. Traumatized. He got into a fight at school because someone called him an inappropriate name. They sent him home from school for seven days, unsupervised. Unsupervised for seven days. He thought he’s on vacation. All he did was sleep.”
Casimiro added, “Now it’s not my job to work with him … Now I am going to work with him, make sure that if I can drag him across that stage next June, I’m going to do it.”
Hopkins said the commission needs to hear directly from people who’ve lived in or have been affected by the child welfare system. Casimiro promised a panel of kids and parents would attend an upcoming meeting.
The commission also flagged transportation and funding as barriers for foster youth. Students can have trouble accessing programs that help academic outcomes, especially if they live far from their schools. And even when initiatives do exist to help them, reliance on short-term grants or federal dollars can make such programs hard to sustain without more lasting state-level commitments.
Katelyn Medeiros, the attorney who heads the Office of the Child Advocate, which is charged with oversight of DCYF, said Rhode Island should look to “states that are getting it right” as models.
Hopkins agreed: “I love the ‘don’t reinvent the wheel’ perspective. … As much as I love the state, we tend to be huge innovators, and we’ve got to do everything bigger, better, newer.”
The panel’s next meeting is scheduled for Sept. 15.
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