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.
I can’t speak for everywhere in the US, but where I live you have to have a physical residence in the school district in order to attend that school. If you don’t, you may be able to attend but you have to fill out forms and the district can reject you if they don’t have space.
They clearly already had space, so that excuse is out.
To play devil’s advocate here:
It’s hypothetically possible they didn’t. If the school is required to enroll every student in its district regardless of its capacity, the school could have been overcrowded already. Kicking out two students may still have left them overcrowded and thus given them justification to deny their admittance on residency status.
(To be absolutely clear, I don’t think this is what happened, but it’s also not an impossible scenario either. But as the school won’t comment now that there’s pending litigation we only have the mother’s word as to what happened, and even though we have no reason to not believe what she is claiming, it should still be remembered that you can allege pretty much whatever you want when filing a civil suit.)
I posted this as a reply to someone else, so copying here too. It’s not they “may” be able to attend, federal law says they must be able to attend and be provided transportation.
The point is for school to be one less difficulty for children in what is an already difficult event.
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The paperwork isn’t the point, I was just clarifying the process a parent would have to go through to admit their child to an out-of-district school under normal circumstances (i.e., not the one in the article).
Having actually read the summary now, my point is moot since it says they were no longer in that school zone.