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These kids want to go to school. The main obstacle? Paperwork

After more than a year of some form of pandemic online learning, students were all required to come back to school in person. Tameka was deeply afraid of COVID-19 and skeptical the schools could keep her kids safe from what she called “the corona.” One morning, in a test run, she sent two kids to school.

Her oldest daughter, then in seventh grade, and her second youngest, a boy entering first grade, boarded their respective buses. She had yet to register the youngest girl, who was entering kindergarten. And her older son, a boy with Down syndrome, stayed home because she wasn’t sure he could consistently wear masks.

After a few hours, the elementary school called: Come pick up your son, they told her. He was no longer enrolled, they said.

Around lunchtime, the middle school called: Come get your daughter, they told her. She doesn’t have a class schedule.

Tameka’s children — all four of them — have been home ever since.

nonailsleft ,

Wait you’re telling me you have to ‘enroll’ your kids in Atlanta? You can’t just ‘enroll’ them on a bus and call it a day?

ZapBeebz_ ,

They were enrolled, but due to a truly tragic series of events, during a global pandemic no less, the kids were “disenrolled” by the school district, and their mother faced a massively uphill battle to reneroll her children, in large part because the system is setup to punish the poorest among us. Too poor to afford a car? Good luck getting to a doctor in order to get required physicals done. And it goes on and on.

nonailsleft ,

Well there’s no denying there’s differences in how difficult a government makes it administratively, and judging from the article Atlanta’s government is doing a really bad job.

That being said, as an adult you’re always going to have to do some administration. If you have children, you’ll have to do even more. It’s questionable if it’s a good idea to keep all of your family’s documents in a backpack you carry around, but when you do lose them, it’s up to you to get them back asap. It’s not easy. It’s not fun. But it’s something that would spur any responsible adult to drop everything and get back in order. 3,5 years?

And the article is fair to mention some other elephants in the room as well. Keeping your kids from school for two years. Ignoring calls, voicemails and emails. Never notifying the school but one day just putting your kids on a bus ‘to see what happens’. That’s completely irresponsible.

And if you’re unable to bear even the responsibility to keep your administration in order, on a fundamental level one should question whether it’s such a great idea to have four kids. If you didn’t finish school, don’t have a steady job, could easily lose your home… After having your first kid with really burdensome special needs, how difficult of a life do you think you’ll have with three more? You’re going to have to be top tier parents to turn that into a success story, otherwise you’re just setting these little kids up to fail. No amount of government assistance can ever make up for bad parents.

Timecircleline , (edited )

My initial thought, in having worked with children and adults with developmental disabilities, was that either a) mom also has a developmental disability or b) has a disorder (maybe anxiety?) that affected her decision making.

Could a parent have done better? Yes, absolutely. I think this is still a societal failure, especially if my hunch is correct.

Edit: Just read the article in full. Mom lost husband in 2020 and was left looking after 4 children with no income. That could be enough to make someone have trouble with more than just day-to-day survival.

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