"You have to stand up for these children's rights that are in your home. It is very unfortunate in Brazoria County that as soon as you're doing it, you get blackballed. They will not place children in your home. Kids will go to shelters before they place them in your home," James says. Meanwhile, his wife says, they'll give variances to other places that are overloaded.
"The one slightest thing with them, if you get wrong ways with them, they will come up with a reason to get you out," James says.
Daniel Kramer
Gloria Rogers says she bonded with Trase right from
the start.
Daniel Kramer
Gloria and Kenny Rogers had hoped to headquarter a
4H club in their new barn.
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The Rogerses point to the ream of letters they have from supporters. A third-grade teacher writes that a Rogers foster child in her class has never shown signs of physical abuse and that "he has made great improvements both academically and socially." West Columbia Elementary Principal Frank Reid writes of another child whose behavior has turned around thanks to the work of the Rogerses. Nola Copus, executive director of the Brazosport Medical Center where the children see a doctor, dentist and eye doctor, says, "The children have always been well behaved and have appeared to be clean and happy." Dr. Ronald R. Corwin, who says he's seen the children in his practice for five months, says that "during discussions with the children they have only expressed happiness and joy at being placed with Mr. Rogers."
Counselor Jamie Evans refers to her sessions with four of the children, saying that they call the Rogerses "Mom" and "Dad" and that the kids said they "always had plenty to eat."
Mary Grupe, a volunteer for CASA, a support group for children, had a boy with the Rogerses for about a year and says he went from being "a belligerent child to a well-adjusted GT [Gifted and Talented] student." The Rogerses, she says, "have just a wonderful family setting."
In fact, CPS itself has been one of the biggest supporters of the Rogerses. In an October 2001 case involving the termination of the parental rights of Jasper, a boy who was being fostered at the Rogers home, CPS employee Tyrone Thomas testified that the child was doing much better with them than he had with his mother. Thomas said that since Jasper had been with the Rogerses, he had made substantial progress, both academically and in skills such as learning to brush his teeth and tie his shoes.
According to the court records, "Thomas testified that Jasper was in a good place and was with awesome parents and Jasper considered them his family."
Gloria and Kenny Rogers are sitting on top of six acres with a five-stall barn, a big house and dreams of a petting zoo. Both have concluded they have to go back to regular work; Gloria already has picked up a part-time job. They've converted their home into a foster care center and they're out of kids. No kids, no money and nothing to do. Even if things are reversed in their favor, Gloria says, she doesn't know if she can ever do this again. "It's been a nightmare," she says.
Last week, prosecutor Rickert said Brazoria County was no longer seeking to regain custody of Trase. Instead, the county is asking the court to order counseling for the family to help the Rogerses better deal with Trase's needs.
But whether the Rogerses are shut down as a foster care facility remains undecided. Rickert says a separate investigation by the state licensing board is looking into that and she cannot discuss it. The other boys are not being returned, and there will be no placements until it is settled.
Is this the case of some seemingly wonderful foster parents successfully hiding evildoing for years by taking in some of the most vulnerable among us, kids with special needs? And in this situation, is CPS, however desperate it is for homes, right in its actions?
Or is this a case of some overly officious, low-paid CPS workers on a power trip who didn't like the challenges a new foster couple brought to their county? And did they take advantage of those same special-needs kids to extract the accounts they needed?
There seems to be no proof, no bruises or broken bones spotted at school, no way of knowing if you weren't there.
In what appears to be a mean-spirited afterthought, CPS sent a March 17 letter to the Rogerses, saying it did not have Trase's Medicaid card, adding, "Children's Protective Services responsibility ended for Trase on March 6, 2003." It advises them to begin applying for Medicaid for Trase all over again.
What we're left with is a five-year-old boy, delicate and sickly, who when he had "escaped" the Rogerses, denied there had been any abuse and chose to go back to them. CPS says everything it has done has been with the best interests of the children in mind.
Everyone certainly hopes so.
