FARMINGTON — Regional School Unit 9 Superintendent Christian Elkington shared a growing concern with the number of children in the care of their grandparents with the board of directors on Tuesday, Feb. 27.

In his superintendent’s report, he shared an article that addresses the rising issue and brought it to the attention of the board to have on their mind as they move forward with their budget.

“It’s one of the untold concerns,” Elkington shared. “This is going up every year. It puts a strain on a lot of safety net issues and concerns, and the schools have to then follow up.”

The article, which was published at www.brookings.edu, states that one in every eight children are currently living with their grandparents based on its data from 2019.

“Since 2000, the share of children in the U.S. living with at least one grandparent has increased by more than 36%, from 9.3% to 12.7%,” the article states. Elkington feels the numbers within the RSU 9 school district are double what was put into the report, estimating roughly 15% to 20%.

In the article, which draws on data collected from 2009 to 2019, it also elaborates that single-parent households had also seen an increase during this time. “The increase in children living with their grandparents is accompanied by a decline in children living in two-parent, parent-only households,” the article states.

“Do you think there’s any correlation between multi-generational households and chronic absenteeism?” Director J. Jeffrey Barnum of New Vineyard asked the superintendent, to which the superintendent stated yes.

In terms of disadvantages, the articles states that grandparents that are in care of their grandchildren are met with high rates of food insecurity and SNAP participation, as well as having double the poverty rate of the general population of older adults.

“This raises the question of how families – particularly skip-generation families – navigate safety net systems that were not designed with grandparent households in mind,” the article states.

“I think that grandparents get put in the middle of some of these difficulties,” Elkington shared. “If they’re not the legal guardian, they’re in a bad situation.”

Director Janice David of Farmington added that she had seen situations like this first hand. “Sometimes the dynamic between the parent and the grandparent are not so good,” she said. “Either the grandparent doesn’t want to push for that guardianship, or the parent is reluctant because of their issues with their parent.”

Elkington did add that for many of the children, it is better for them to be in the care of their grandparents than in the foster care system, but this still presents problems for the school when it comes to coordinating care for the child through a person that does not have legal guardianship over the child.

“When principals call home, and guidance counselors call home, a lot of times you’re talking to grandparents,” Elkington shared. “The parents have not made the legal switch. They’re on the emergency file, but they’re not the legal guardian.”

Barnum asked the superintendent how the problem should be addressed.

“It’s more of a ‘we need to be mindful’,” Elkington stated. “Our school teams need to be mindful of this and really try to work with the birthright parents, so they allow their parent more opportunity to be the first responder to things. It creates a dynamic a triangle, that is not a direct link.

“So that’s the best thing we can do right now,” he continued, “is just really ask [those] parents who are not around to give their parents more say in direct understanding of what they have to do to oversee the grandchildren.”

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