posted August 28, 2008
My biggest concern on the issue of sending parents to jail in truancy cases is where will the children be sent to live while the parent or parents are serving 30 days in jail or prison?
If the parent or parents have a job (even a minimum wage one) that job will not be waiting for them when they are released. They will probably face eviction. Or if they live in public housing their lease could be terminated. Adding to the homeless population, where entire families will be living on the streets.
I know of a set of twin girls who have been homeless off and on since elementary school while their mother served time in prison periodically. Their father did what he could, but was often homeless himself, and they were all forced to live in one room hotel rooms from time to time when no family members would take them in. They're teens now. Very intelligent, got good grades in school and played on the basketball team. But they also became sexually active at a very early age. I feel their uncertain living conditions played a role in all that.
I lost contact with the girls over a year or so ago and haven't been able to find out what became of them, but they're always on my mind. They weren't related to me in any way, and I only came upon their situation by accident when they briefly lived with my granddaughter and her mother.
I'm just wondering if anyone has taken time to pencil in that jailing the parents may only contribute to the downward spiral many of the children already face. Many of these young people are resilient and strong. They have to grow up very fast. They are survivors and can survive and even thrive even in the most dreadful situation. However, when everything is taken away, there's nowhere else to go but down and into a life of possible drugs, prostitution and whatever else it may take to survive.
People on the outside can't always see the entire picture. They instead say, "Look how "those" people live." And set about trying to correct the problem but, instead, usually cause their situations to worsen. But the reality is, that's the way "those" people have learned to survive, and they're often very good at it too until other in their desire to help actually do more harm than good.
Brenda Manghane~Washington
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While I normally seem to disagree with Ms. Washington on most topics I agree with her concerning her posting. If the parents are in lockup, who is then going to take care of the children? Is this going to be another burden on government services to watch over these kids or will these kids end up on the streets? Are they going to arrest both parents or flip a coin to decide which one goes to the pokey? What punishment is the child going to face? Kick him/her out of school?
What about the parents who let their kids off at the school, only for the kids to escape from the campus and not attend class? Is it really the parents fault? If the student is actually on the campus and leaves, is it the fault of the school? The finger pointing begins over who is accountable for the student and when.
An even bigger question may be does the school system really care about the learning of the child, or is the main concern the funding it loses when a student is absent? Growing up, kids missed school for illness, vacations, etc and as long as they made up their work and their grades were strong no one seemed to care. Now, with large budgets, overpaid administrators and a large number of employees at the administrative offices every cent of funding counts.
It looks to me as though more questions remain as do answers to truancy issues. In many peoples eyes, the hypocrisy of education associations, boards of education, and community leaders chanting "it's all about the children" lives on, when they should really be yelling "show me the money!"
Giselle Denton
Chattanooga
giselle.denton@yahoo.com
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