The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting school closures have further exacerbated the unique challenges that youth in foster care faced long before the pandemic and now put them at even greater risk of falling behind in school. Students in foster care are disproportionately impacted by school closures, since they often lack access to the technology and support they need to participate in distance learning.

In The Impact of COVID-19 on Students in Foster Care we highlight data that show students in foster care were less engaged than their peers in distance learning during spring 2020 school closures, and identify barriers that foster youth are experiencing during the pandemic that hinder their ability to be engaged in school and prepared to learn. We also offer recommendations to address these challenges and help prevent additional learning loss and trauma, while ensuring that foster youth can overcome the learning loss and trauma they have already experienced.