A new report from the Evan B. Donaldson Foundation came out a couple of weeks ago: "Adoption in the Schools: A Lot to Learn" Here's the lowdown:

[The report] for the first time brings together research and years of broad experience on a range of issues that affect millions of boys and girls nationwide. It points out that, as adoption becomes increasingly normalized in the United States, more and more adoptive families are confronting challenges when their children attend school - and it offers recommendations for how educators can better meet those challenges.

I facetiously subtitled my blog entry 'so what else is new?' because if you've been reading these blogs at all over the past few months, particularly since school started, you would see the proof in the pudding in all our bloggers' experiences. That schools need to be more sensitive and responsive to adoptive families is nothing new here.

I guess what's "new" is that a real study has been done. Anecdotes don't hold up when you're making policy.

Here are some of the recommendations from "Adoption in Schools":

Education about adoption and foster care should be included in diversity courses and development trainings for teachers and other school personnel.

Some school assignments (such as the family tree) can be problematic or inappropriate for adopted and foster children, and should be modified.

A lack of accurate information can prevent educators from identifying children's needs correctly and, therefore, from providing effective interventions.

School policies should prohibit harassment and negative comments about adoption and foster care, just as they already apply to gender and race.

The Evan B. Donaldson Institute feels that one way to create more sensitivity and awareness of the problem is to education the educators. (Hmm. I smell a future work opportunity for me...).

Here are some of the things children have said about the impressions they've gotten about adoption in school (from the full report):

"...I hate it when we talk about traits we have inherited from our parents-teachers never do anything when kids start figuring out that I am Exhibit A in a family that doesn't all have the same DNA."

"There's one kid who bugs me all the time about being adopted."

"I want my teacher to help me when I get asked so many questions."

"If my teacher never talks about adoption, I think she doesn't like it."

Ouch.