A quick google search is enough to impress upon anyone the importance of safety in schools. It’s a key feature of any learning environment. But what do families do when their child is not safe at school, but they cannot afford to move or pay for another option? The way the system is now, there is very little a parent can do to care for their child in this situation. In a recent news story, one mother spoke to the press, accusing other children of a hate crime, when her child was beaten up on a school bus. This coverage, of course, brought attention to the situation, and the children were suspended. But stories of school bus bullies always remind me of a situation I overheard first-hand when trying to get my own children’s school assignment changed.

Several years ago, we moved from Chicago to Raleigh. In April of that year, we purchased a home in Raleigh, but we stayed in Illinois through the summer. Over the summer our new neighborhood was reassigned to a different elementary school. The rest of the families in the neighborhood had been grandfathered into the previous school assignment, and according to the rule, this grandfathering should have applied to us as well. But something in the system was administratively amiss, and therefore, I found myself spending several days at the school system’s administrative building working to have my children reassigned to the school that all of our neighbors attended.

The turmoil that school reassignments had created was on full display at the school district’s central office. As I sat there, at least a hundred parents filed through filing applications to change their child’s school assignment for one reason or another. But the most memorable was a young African American woman who was desperate to keep her child safe. Her son was assigned to a school over 10 miles away, and she wanted to transfer him to a school within walking distance. She said that everyday her son was getting beat up on the bus ride. In her efforts to protect him, she had spoken with the police. Their recommendation was to not put the child on the bus anymore. Since she had no way to transport him to school, she wanted her child reassigned to the school that was down the street from her home. She claimed that she could walk her child to this school every morning.

However, as she spoke with the woman at the front desk, it was clear the police and the education system would be at odds. The office worker informed the mother that these were terrible circumstances, but they were not circumstances for a transfer. The administrator told the mother, “This shouldn’t happen. You need to talk to the bus driver again about this, but this isn’t one of the reasons that the district recognizes for transferring a child.” The mother left crying and defeated, and it was clear she did not have the means to try to fight the bureaucracy she was faced with. I’ll never know what happened to that mother and her child, but her circumstances haunt me still. 

The chaos caused by the redistricting that year dominated the education news in Raleigh. It turns out that while hundreds of parents asked for reassignments that year, only a handful was granted. Most of the appeals that were granted were employees of the school district. The system worked well for people in the system, and it still does. The school system has now implemented formal transfer request rules that guarantee certain district employee transfer requests. Transfers requested to protect a child’s safety are still not guaranteed.   

Families need to know that their children are safe when they send them off to school. Fighting the bureaucracy is often a losing battle. Truancy laws can send a parent to jail for holding their child out of an unsafe environment and places disproportionate power in the hands of bureaucrats. What a terrible feeling as a parent! To send a child to a school, knowing they will face harm, but feeling powerless to stop or change the circumstances. We need a system where families are heard and their efforts to protect their children are respected. When parents’ safety concerns are rejected by the system, parents need to be able to reject the system and leave it behind. To learn more, check out a different type of education option.