PACE Sounds The Alarm: Children Are Not Currency
By Parent Action Coalition for Education (PACE)
“Educate to Elevate”
There is a cry rising from California’s foster-care system—a cry from children whose voices are too often buried beneath sealed courtrooms, confidential files, government contracts and professional fees.
A June 2026 citizens’ “Call to Action” directed to the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors presents explosive allegations: that dependency-court practices, taxpayer-funded legal contracts and failures of representation may be keeping children unnecessarily separated from their families while lawyers and other participants continue collecting public dollars. The document alleges that more than 6,000 children are caught in what its authors describe as a foster-care-to-trafficking pipeline. These are allegations, not proven findings—but allegations this serious cannot simply be ignored, ridiculed or hidden behind the confidentiality of juvenile proceedings.
Parent Action Coalition for Education does not pronounce anyone guilty without evidence and due process. But neither will PACE remain silent while children may be treated as case numbers, billing units or commodities in a taxpayer-supported industry.
The federal government’s Child Welfare Information Gateway states plainly that “children and youth in foster care have a higher risk of experiencing trafficking and sexual exploitation.” That is not political rhetoric. It is an official warning from the nation’s child-welfare system. (Child Welfare Information Gateway)
The precise number of children presently in San Bernardino County foster care must be independently established. The county’s 2023 annual report listed 4,751 children across foster-care and related placement categories, while county indicators report that another 1,743 children entered foster care during 2025. Therefore, the allegation that more than 6,000 children are currently affected deserves verification through current, publicly accountable records—not dismissal and not speculation.
The danger is not imaginary. In 2025, prosecutors charged three members of a Victorville family with torturing six foster children between the ages of four and sixteen. The alleged abuse reportedly included daily beatings, strangulation and withholding food and water. Authorities had not publicly explained how the alleged mistreatment continued for years without detection. That unanswered question should disturb every supervisor, judge, attorney, social worker and taxpayer responsible for protecting children. (AP News)
A system established to rescue children from trauma must never become another source of trauma.
When a child’s removal generates additional hearings, contracts, placements and professional fees, every public servant involved has an elevated duty to ensure that financial incentives never influence decisions about family separation. Lawyers must advocate, judges must question, social workers must tell the truth, contractors must document their services, and government officials must audit the public money entrusted to them.
No person should be paid for services that were not performed. No attorney should appear only long enough to preserve a contract. No child should remain in an unsafe placement because nobody visited, listened or investigated. No parent should lose custody without meaningful representation, reliable evidence and a fair opportunity to be heard. And no child should be automatically returned to an unsafe home merely to reduce government costs. Reunification must occur whenever it is lawful, carefully reviewed and genuinely safe for the child. The solution to one institutional failure cannot be another reckless decision.
PACE therefore calls for an independent examination of San Bernardino County’s dependency system—not an internal review controlled by the same institutions facing the allegations. Attorney contracts, invoices, case assignments, client-contact records, placement reports, abuse complaints and court minute orders should be preserved and audited. Children and former foster youth must be interviewed through trauma-informed, independent professionals. Credible evidence of billing fraud, trafficking, civil-rights violations, obstruction or abuse should be referred to the California Attorney General, the California State Auditor, appropriate federal inspectors general and the United States Department of Justice.
The public also deserves an aggregate report explaining how many children are in care, how long they have remained there, how frequently their attorneys meet with them, how many abuse allegations arise after placement, how quickly those allegations are investigated and how much taxpayer money is paid to each contracted provider.
Confidentiality must protect children. It must never protect misconduct.
California has already received a horrifying warning about the cost of institutional failure. Los Angeles County approved a $4 billion settlement covering nearly 7,000 claims alleging sexual abuse in foster-care and juvenile facilities over several decades. Money cannot restore a stolen childhood. Settlements cannot erase terror. Justice after the damage is never as valuable as protection before the damage. (AP News)
As PACE has declared in demanding truth for Baby Kohen, governmental secrecy cannot become a shield against public accountability. When vulnerable children are harmed, justice must not depend upon their age, race, family income, ZIP code or ability to hire influential attorneys.
The appearance of governmental tyranny grows whenever agencies silence parents, conceal records, disregard children’s cries and continue conducting business as usual. Sunshine, independent investigation and enforceable accountability are the remedies.
Parent Action Coalition for Education was created to advocate for children, parents and communities whose voices are too often disregarded. We will continue to educate, organize and elevate those voices. We will stand beside foster youth, emancipating young adults, parents seeking fair hearings and survivors courageous enough to speak.
Children are not government property.
Children are not inventory for placement.
Children are not legal-fee generators.
Children are not currency.
Until every child is protected, every credible allegation is investigated and every taxpayer-funded official is held accountable, PACE will continue sounding the alarm.
That is not disorder.
That is not disrespect.
This is the voice of Parent Action Coalition for Education. PACE will continue to educate, advocate and elevate the voices of children, parents and foster youth until every credible allegation is investigated, every public dollar is accounted for and every child entrusted to government care is treated with dignity, protection and justice.
