After AP investigation, family of missing students enrolls in school

ATLANTA — Four months after The Associated Press wrote about an Atlanta family struggling to enroll in school, all of the children — in a complete turnaround — returned to class last month. The project on Monday was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

The youngest child, an energetic 8-year-old girl, had never attended school before. On her first day, she was greeted at her home by a half dozen children from around the apartment block, who escorted her to the bus stop, her mother said. “I was most excited for her,” said Tameka. “My other children, they know what school’s like. I want that experience for her.”

(Tameka is her middle name. The AP has withheld her full name because she runs the risk of jail time or losing custody since her kids haven’t been in school.) The final child, a student with Down syndrome, started school last Tuesday, Tameka said.

Thousands of students went missing from American classrooms during the pandemic and online learning. For Tameka’s four children, the disruption in schooling lasted four years. Crippling poverty, onerous paperwork and her depression stood in the way of resuming their education — or starting it for the first time.

Atlanta Public Schools received $332 million in federal recovery money to help students rebound from pandemic learning loss and return to school. But school staff had largely stopped trying to contact Tameka’s family until an AP reporter started inquiring about them last year, according to communication logs shared by the district. Tameka often lacked a working phone, but the district relied on phone messages and made only one home visit over more than three years, records show. (AP journalists visited Tameka at her home to communicate with her.)

After AP published its story about Tameka and continued making inquiries, the school contacted the state’s child welfare department at least once, according to district spokesman Seth Coleman. In March, child services threatened to remove her children if they weren’t in school by mid-april, Tameka said.

That same month, Tameka received a hefty check from the federal government, thanks to a refundable child tax credit, enabling her to replace a broken phone and run errands necessary to complete the complicated paperwork to register her children.

Tameka’s three older children — ages 9, 13 and 14 — didn’t return to in-person school when Atlanta reopened in the fall of 2021. The school district removed the children from the rolls when they missed 10 straight days, citing a state regulation.

Months later, Tameka tried sending two of her children to school, not realizing they no longer had a place at their elementary and middle schools.

Re-enrolling them felt impossible. In addition to filing an application, Atlanta requires a minimum of eight documents to register a child for school, including a notarized affidavit.

Tameka was surprised to hear the district was questioning whether she lives in Atlanta and whether her children were eligible to attend their schools. “I’m not trying to run or hide,” she said. “They’re acting like I’m trying to hide or I’m a criminal.” Still, Tameka acknowledges how her depression and feelings of being overwhelmed clouded her judgment and ability to solve problems. “I never asked for help,” she said. “I was trying to do things by myself.”

When they enrolled, the four children took tests to see what grade they should enter. And the district has offered the children spots in summer school, Tameka said.

But their place in school is still provisional. The district admitted them without all of their documentation. Tameka had 30 days to take each child to the doctor and fill out a state-mandated health certificate evaluating their nutrition, eyesight, hearing and dental health. She hasn’t made all the appointments yet.