1y ago

North Carolina mother sues school district for kicking her homeless kids out of class

A woman in North Carolina is suing a school district, alleging officials forced her children to switch schools while they experienced homelessness.

The suit from the mother, identified as K.L., claims Gaston County Schools; Lisa Phillips, state coordinator for Education of Homeless Children; and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction failed her children when the district forced the children to leave their original schools while already facing the trauma of homelessness.

The 17-page lawsuit filed on Jan. 26 states K.L. was evicted from her residence in September 2023 while her children were students at New Hope Elementary and Cramerton Middle School.

With two children and nowhere to go, the suit states the disabled veteran mother switched both children to car riders while searching for steady housing. While the family remained in the same city, they were not located in the same school zone following the eviction.

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The mother is a disabled veteran.
I'm not super pro-military or anything, but a veteran, especially a disabled veteran, deserves to be taken care of by the country they sacrificed for.
Obviously, the school deserves to be sued for what they did, but those kids should never have been homeless in the first place. They should have been housed by the U.S. military on the military's dime.
- The military certainly has the money. Build a single less B-1 (or whatever the new hotness stealth airplane or destroyer is) and you could probably house every single homeless vet. Maybe every homeless person. Idk but those things are insanely expensive.
  
  The F-35 program cost taxpayers $1.7 trillion.
  But hey, at least they fly well enough for us to give them to Israel I guess...
- The military is too busy misplacing and spending all their dime on things to hurt the poors.
- I'm being honest here, there's actually a ton of housing support for homeless veterans. She'll have to take action to access that help of course, and that doesn't negate the trauma of getting evicted the entire family is experiencing, or the school district making it worse
  
  I don’t know if this makes me a radical communist or something, but in my opinion, if you’ve served in the military, especially if you’ve become disabled during your time, you shouldn’t get assistance paying for a house.
  Your house should be bought and paid for. 110% subsidy, to help pay for things that will inevitably be imperfect with the property; electrical issues, corroded pipes, outdated HVAC, security, CO detectors, etc.
- especially a disabled veteran
  Why is a veteran more deserving of care than a teacher, a firefighter, a nurse, a construction worker, or literally any one else serving their community? Is it because they kill people and destabilize countries at the behest of corporations?
- It states they were residing outside the school zone, so they were staying somewhere or other. Since when was it even the schools choice? Taxes and school districts are set up that way. It sucks, but I don't see how it's the school's fault. The mom must have informed the school where they were statlying at it would have been illegal for the school to not make them change.
  
  Depends on district policy and state/local law. E.g., in my kid's district a parent can request for their child to attend any school of the same grade within the district if space is available, but parents have to provide transportation if it's not the zoned school. For the district where we lived previously, a family moving out of zone could request that students be allowed to keep attending their current school through the end of the year.
  Per the article, both state and federal law allows these kids to continue attending the same school in such situations. It's the school's fault because, even if their district has no such policies, the clear and obvious course would be to seek an exception until policy could be addressed to align with the law. Instead, they simply refused to meet with the mother.
Can we at least agree that people should never be homeless? No?
Can we at least agree that disabled people should never be homeless? Still no?
How about veterans? Once again no.
Disabled veterans with children? Believe it or not, also no.
- Can we agree that the wealthiest country on Earth shouldn't have these problems?
  Laughs in late-stage capitalism.
  
  But think about those poor workers who won't be able to supply billionaires with yachts? What about their kids huh!?!
- No child should go hungry or miss out on an education. We have the resources to treat people better.
  
  Would you think of the CEOs' yachts?
- Tbh, the fact you even mentioned veterans is really fuckin weird to most people.
  What makes them any more deserving than anyone else? Because they killed brown people for oil money?
  Just shows the level of brainwashing going on
  
  It's not that I think veterans are better people or anything. It's just that if I were to literally risk my life for some organization (such as the US government), I would expect that organization to show some fucking gratitude when I need help.
  
  The media loves to mention it for sympathy points but I think it's only being brought up here to point out the hypocrisy of the right who often speak highly of veterans in public but really don't give two shits about them.
  
  Your take is so far off the mark. Conservative voices have screamed for decades about supporting the troops as some form of projected nationalism. This was all just fine until Trump came along and started being horrid to veterans, especially those who were captured, injured, or killed. Then Conservatives started becoming directly hostile towards veteran families.
  The point here is that Conservatives chanted the chant but never got behind making life better for veterans. The person you are responding to simply pointed out this discordance.
This is heartbreaking. Alone the fact that there is such a thing as "homeless children" is heartbreaking. The US really needs some help.
- Nah, we good, we have god, guns, and nukes. 🫡🇺🇲
  
  I hope you're sarcastic
Split representation in the House (72-48 in the state and 7-7 at the federal level, R favor), a 5-2 split in their supreme court (R favor) and 2 republican US senators (30-20 state level in the Republicans favor) is the reason why. Stop voting Red and your state won’t be so shitty towards people
- The ones voting R are okay with this outcome as long as others get hurt. Even if innocents get hurt
  
  Until it affects them personally, then they become very sad.
  
  And then when their shortsighted policies affect them they blame "the government" as if it wasn't the very people they elected that caused it.
With two children and nowhere to go, the suit states the disabled veteran mother switched both children to car riders while searching for steady housing.
What the fuck does "car riders" mean in this sentence?
- Probably indicates that they won't be riding a school bus to school and will be dropped off and picked up by car.
This sounds like a clear violation of the McKinney-Vento Act.
I believe the problems stem from public schools being funded indirectly by real estate values. That means you're discriminated against if your parents are poor. That the school makes it so explicit by kicking the children out as soon as possible is not just cruel, it's stupid too.
Laws in the US are so cruel to the poor. It is effectively apartheid.
if she didnt live in the school's district then her kids need to attend a different school, seem pretty simple
- Which would be a violation of the McKinney-Vento Act.
But were her kids kicked out for being homeless or were they kicked out for being obnoxious disturbances? The title makes it seem like her kids are being kicked out of school for being homeless. And why was she evicted from her residence?
- were they kicked out for being obnoxious disturbances?
  It's nice how you immediately jump to victim-blaming with absolutely no context.
  The title makes it seem like her kids are being kicked out of school for being homeless.
  Because that was the point of the article.
  And why was she evicted from her residence?
  Wholly irrelevant question.
  I'll explain what likely happened given what was in the article:
  She was kicked out of her house. Her children therefore did not live in the school district. The school administration decided to kick them out of school for not living in the district.
  Are they following the letter of the law? Probably. Could they be more compassionate and flexible? Definitely.
- You didn't even need to click on the link. It's right there in the last paragraph OP posted.
  With two children and nowhere to go, the suit states the disabled veteran mother switched both children to car riders while searching for steady housing. While the family remained in the same city, they were not located in the same school zone following the eviction.
  
  And that answers none of the questions I posed, evasion isn't going to gloss over the issues I listed.
- Congratulations, you're both incredibly dumb and an incredibly shitty person.
  
  And you're the scum of the earth, so that still ranks me higher than you in every possible way.
- I imagine it was because they no longer technically had a mailing address in the district. Would have been a nice thing if the school district had let it slide, at minimum until the start of summer vacation but they decided that wasn't the priority. Better ten kids not get an education vs one poor kid get a good one is our motto apparently.
  
  That's a pretty lousy reason to kick kids out of school. IF that's really what it's all about, the article didn't make that clear at all.
  If anything the school district should step in at that point and offer to help the family instead of shitting all over them when they are in such terrible circumstances.
  
  the McKinney-Vento Act. Already covers this. They are simply choosing to ignore it

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