By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – The Alabaster City School System has made permanent a policy to allow students who are placed in foster care outside the city to continue to attend schools in the city, a policy school leaders said they have been following for years.

During a Jan. 12 meeting, the Alabaster Board of Education voted to update its policy manual to include a section about Alabaster children who are placed in foster care.

Usually, only students who live within Alabaster city limits are allowed to attend the city’s schools. However, the system makes exceptions for students who are placed in foster care outside the city, said ACS Student Services Coordinator Dorann Tanner.

Tanner said the school system has always followed the foster care policy, and said placing in into the system’s manual makes the policy permanent.

“This policy is just putting in writing what we’ve always done,” Tanner said. “Any child who is placed in foster care and has to move outside the city, we don’t want them to have to move schools if possible.”

Alabaster School Superintendent Dr. Wayne Vickers said the School Board placed the policy into the manual at the suggestion of the attendance office.

“This is something we’ve always done,” Vickers said. “It’s not a change to anything.”