On Nov 23 14:15 96, Bob Moylan of 1:275/429.5 wrote to Jerry Schwartz:
JS>> There are laws in most states requiring that your child attend school,
JS>> that may have been the issue.
BM>  For a day???
Around here, more than some number of unexcused absences and the child flunks 
the semester.  They are also trying to have various state agencies get on the 
cases of parents if the kids miss school, up to and including financial 
penalties.
Obviously, the real target is the parents of kids who skip school repeatedly: 
but since it is hard to get the attention of a parent who is too high or 
drunk to care, the school authorities come down disproportionately on those 
parents who are the most responsive.  This is a natural human tendency, 
combining the temptation to take the easy cases with the allure of a minor 
power trip.
For example, our Child and Family Services department is vastly overloaded 
with real problem cases: 11-year-old mothers, children with cigarette burns, 
kids whose parents are in jail, etc.  They just can't keep up, they have 
perhaps 10 minutes per month to alot to any given case.  In this context, 
when my wife adopted my son the social worker spent almost two hours 
interviewing ME.
It works to our advantage, too: we get a lot more attention paid to us and my 
son's problems than would happen if we were uninvolved and he were a worse 
case.
Jerry Schwartz
--- Msged/386 4.00
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