Back 2 $chool-$PECIAL!

Let your memory drift back to your grade school days. Did you dread knowing that early August signaled the soon-to-be ringing school bell? Or did you long for the stability of the classroom, your friends, and even some of your teachers? For me it varied.

Parents and guardians, especially those of limited income, view Back To School (BTS) time as a mixed bag. Sure, getting kids into their routines (and out from underfoot) is good, but the expense of getting them back to school is a budget-buster. Estimates range from near $500 for elementary kids to $1,000 for high schoolers. Even factoring in the typical frugality of financially-struggling parents, one kid is expensive, and multiple, well, multiply and groan!

Then add in things like essential school clothes and shoes, haircuts, doctors' visits, new glasses, and school fees, not to mention driving them around (or, gasp, public transportation if available). And that's just for the "free, appropriate public education." Private school families, some of limited means, also get to pay skyrocketing tuition.

In the Atlanta area, and across the nation, poverty and homelessness add to BTS challenges. According to a recent news article,

About 18 percent of children under 18 live below the poverty level in Georgia, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Georgia ranks among the worst in homelessness among school kids, with nearly 58,400 students experiencing homelessness each year, federal data reported to The National Center on Family Homelessness shows.

And those 58,400 homeless GA students are just the ones identified as homeless. You can bet your lunch money that plenty more kids than the 58k have no place to eat, play, do their homework, and sleep.

My friend Julianna, who with her family experienced domestic violence-related homelessness, now live on the financial edge of homelessness. She's the queen of resourcefulness when it comes to stretching her teachers' aide pittance of a salary, seeking school staple give-aways--notebooks, book bags, pens, etc.--and tries to anticipate the standard needs of big buck extras--special calculators, etc.--shopping sales or being humble enough to accept hand-me-downs for her kids. Most parents who survive this BTS marathon have similar strategies.

What can families do? If they are homeless, they should qualify for some assistance through the school, assuming everything is cool (it should be, it's the law) with enrollment. Most experienced limited-income families  are aware of local back to school fairs. I'll be spending time at one this Saturday in Aurora, searching for families who have been given "bum" information about their children's rights when housing instability is an issue.

Seems to me that a great use of stimulus dollars would be to help millions of fiscally-struggling families get their kids to school in good style. Or, perhaps better yet, the feds could put the squeeze on the math-challenged Wall Street firms that paid more bonuses to the bazillion bucks losers than the firms took in. What better use of their bonus money than to help families educate their kids in style?

photos by the author