The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires local educational agencies (LEAs) to collaborate with local child welfare agencies to ensure transportation for children in foster care is provided, arranged, and funded for the duration of a child’s time in foster care.  ESSA further provides that LEAs must ensure:

• Children in foster care needing transportation to their school of origin will promptly receive that transportation in a cost-effective manner; and
• If there are additional costs incurred in providing transportation to the school of origin, the LEA will provide such transportation if (1) the local child welfare agency agrees to reimburse the LEA for the cost of such transportation; (2) the LEA agrees to pay for the cost; or (3) the LEA and local child welfare agency agree to share the cost.

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) provides options for the team to consider. This is not an exhaustive list of options; LEAs and local child welfare agencies should explore all possible options:

• An existing bus route can be used.
• An existing bus route can be modified slightly to accommodate the new address.
• Specialized transportation offered to other students can be accessed, such as:
  • Special Education
  • Alternative education
  • Magnet School
  • McKinney-Vento transportation

• Existing specialized transportation can be modified slightly to accommodate the new address.

   

• The school district has additional options that could be accessed, such as using a district car.
• The school district may identify alternatives not provided by the school district that the Children’s Division could access or that the school district would be willing to assist in accessing. This may include the district facilitating arrangements or providing transportation (e.g. cabs or other contracted transport) and receiving reimbursement.
• Children’s Division can explore options outside of those provided by the district, such as reimbursing the resource parent for transportation costs, or including transport in contracts with licensed residential treatment facilities.

NOTE: If the student has an IEP that includes provisions for specialized transportation, transportation must be provided by the school district responsible for the student’s Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE).

Based on the location of the resource home, some of the options above may not create additional costs to the school district. Other options may and, therefore, LEAs and local child welfare agencies must coordinate to explore all options and develop plans for providing and funding transportation for children to remain in their school of origin, if determined to be in the child’s best interest.

If the BID results in the child remaining in the school of origin, and the transportation plan creates an additional cost to the school district and the two agencies agree to share the cost, the financial Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and related Attachment A should be executed.  The MOU outlines the responsibilities of CD/FCCM and the school district around invoicing and reimbursement processes for additional transportation costs incurred pursuant to ESSA.  The MOU is standardized and approved by the Division of Legal Services and the Division of Financial Administrative Services (DFAS), and therefore, may not be altered.  Executing this MOU with a school district involves the following steps:

An MOU should be executed with a school district only once a transportation cost-sharing agreement is negotiated for a child to maintain him/her in the school of origin, pursuant to ESSA. This will limit the number of MOUs to only those with a business need identified.

The MOU and Attachment A can be accessed via:

• Intranet ” Programs ” FCOOHC
• Intranet ” Employee Tools A-Z

Only one MOU is needed for each school district, regardless of which circuit executed it.

When a BID process results in a negotiated cost-sharing agreement between CD/FCCM and the school district, the MOU should be presented to the district and signed by a district designee (Authorized Signature of the School District) and the Circuit Manager or authorized designee (Approval Signature for the Children’s Division). The Authorized Signature for the Department will be obtained by the DFAS Procurement Unit. It is important that this signature line is left blank.

NOTE: Contracted staff – once an MOU is signed by the school district – will submit the MOU to the local CD office for the Circuit Manager’s signature. Children’s Division will then submit the MOU to Central Office as described below.

Prior to entering into an MOU with a school district, please check the Procurement Unit’s Contract Reports site to see if an MOU with that school district has already been executed and is in effect:

• Procurement Unit Contract Reports site
• Search for MOU by title – “School Transportation Reimbursement“ -utilizing the drop down menu.
• All approved and executed MOUs will be listed by school district.

If an MOU has already been established with the school district, staff may work directly with the schools involved to complete and obtain signatures on the ESSA Individual Student Transportation Plan form (Attachment A). Reimbursement to school districts cannot occur without the MOU in effect.

• The original signed MOU should be sent to Central Office so it can be logged and forwarded to DFAS Procurement Unit for finalization, posting to SharePoint, and record retention.
• The Attachment A – Individual Student Transportation Plan is completed to document the child-specific transportation plan and cost-sharing agreement negotiated between the two agencies. The original is maintained in the child’s case record.

Invoices / Reimbursement Process to School Districts:

The school district must be an Unclassified (UN) Vendor.

• The county office will assign the district a DVN locally, if not already completed.

NOTE: Please use the official school district name as listed on the DESE Missouri School Directory Interactive Map – use the Search by County tool to the right of the page.

• Send a UN SS-60 form along with tax documentation to DFAS FACES Payment Unit for approval and entry into FACES.

The school district shall invoice CD/FCCM as outlined in Section 4.4 of the MOU.

The county office will ensure all required elements for invoicing outlined in the MOU are documented on the invoice prior to payment.

The invoice will be paid on a Payment Request (PR) through FACES:

• Program Area:  AC
• Vendor Type:  UN
• Service Code:  TRED (NA)
• Service Dates:  Per day, enter round trip mileage
• Unit Rate:  Total number of miles (CD’s cost per mile, as negotiated)
• Comments:  “Payment is made pursuant to ESSA – see attached agreement”

Attach the invoice and a copy of the child’s completed and signed Attachment A – Individual Student Transportation Plan and send to the FACES Payment Unit.

Reimbursement to Resource Provider:

If the decision is made for the resource parent to provide the transportation for the child to remain in his/her school of origin, and the school district cannot or will not reimburse, mileage reimbursement will be made to the resource parent. All resource parents may receive reimbursement at the current state mileage rate for each mile traveled to and from the child’s school of origin for the day.  Level B resource parents also may be fully reimbursed for transporting the child to his/her school of origin, disregarding the mandatory 200-mile deduction.  Resource parents, however, are not paid mileage for their commute to or from their place of employment.  When transporting youth to or from their school of origin involves a shared route with the resource parent’s commute to work, only the additional mileage incurred transporting the child to the school of origin may be claimed and reimbursed.  Full mileage will be reimbursed if the resource parent did not report to work the day being claimed. 

Mileage will be reimbursed by completing a Payment Request in FACES using the service code TRED. The resource provider will complete the Travel Expense Log (CD-106) and submit it to the local CD staff for approval within thirty (30) days from the end of the month in which the expenses were incurred.

Related Practice Alerts and Memos:

8-6-19 – PP19 CM-02 – Collaboration with Schools to Support Foster Care Students