Thousands of kids went missing from schools during the pandemic. For some who have tried to return, school paperwork has proved a daunting obstacle.

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.

  • Veraxus@kbin.social
    3·
    9 months ago

    In Atlanta, where Tameka lives, parents must present at least eight documents to enroll their children — twice as many as parents in New York City or Los Angeles. One of the documents — a complicated certificate evaluating a child’s dental health, vision, hearing and nutrition — is required by the state. Most of the others are Atlanta’s doing, including students’ Social Security cards and an affidavit declaring residency that has to be notarized.

    So it’s right-wing obstructionism; the exact same strategy they use on voters. Make it impossibly difficult for the filthy poors and POC to make use of their natural civil and social rights.

    • SkepticalButOpenMinded
      3·
      9 months ago

      That part stuck out to me too. The party of limited regulation and small government always seems to have the most onerous and demanding regulations and oppressive governments.