My daughter starts kindergarten next year, and I’m terrified. Shootings are always in the back of my mind. When I go to the store, I’m thinking “what’s my plan if there’s a shooting?” After Texas, I just don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m a single parent and I have to work. A lot of people I know are going to homeschool. If I can’t get a job working from home, I’ll get a job at my child’s school because I’m too afraid to be away from her.
Life should not be like this. When I was in school, we were taught that the US is the best country. The safest country. Now I want nothing more than to leave. This is coming from someone who is pro-gun, but if it keeps our children safe, take the fucking guns away. This is a mental health crisis because our healthcare is shit, and let’s make it easy to get guns on top of no mental healthcare.
I can’t homeschool or move and on top of that—I don’t want to! I’d be a bad home school teacher and I love America, with all her flaws. What I want to do is send my beautiful, smart, bright child to school and NOT HAVE TO WORRY THAT SHE IS GOING TO GET FUCKING RIPPED TO SHREDS BY A WEAPON OF WAR. THATS WHAT I FUCKING WANT.
I make a great salary and consider myself very privileged, but I can’t even consider home school because I HAVE to work. And private schools are crazy expensive (and also where I live they’re drug-infested Christofascist indoctrination centers full of spoiled rich kids who get away with a lot of bad shit, but that’s another story…).
And unless you’re in specific fields or have very specialized skill sets (or marry someone in another country) moving countries isn’t as easy as people imply.
Hell, I can’t even move states without going through the court system to change my custody agreement and I have elderly family who can’t just up and move that I can’t abandon.
People are delusional. We have to make this country matter for more than just the top 10%.
While we do homeschool our kids, I understand that public school is extremely necessary and is in trouble in more ways than one. We’re very fortunate to even have homeschool as an option.
We shouldn’t have to weigh “possibility of being shot” into the pros and cons when deciding whether to homeschool or not.
Saaame.
Also, I could probably quit my job and homeschool, but what problem is that solving? My kids would hate it. Socialization would be difficult. I would hate it too.
Not only that, but this decision by those who do have the privilege to take their kid out of public school further dicks over the families most at risk. Public schools are funded based on how many kids they serve…when those enrollment numbers drop, schools receive less funding. When schools receive less funding, they can’t pay competitive wages for educational professionals and can’t afford other necessary resources, and the quality of education drops. Or worse, the entire school has to shut down.
This is just one more log on the fire fueling a race to the bottom. Nothing about this situation is okay, but threatening to take your kids out of public school doesn’t actually fix the problem and it creates (well, exacerbates) others.
I heard it at the beginning of the pandemic when conservatives were sure it was going to be the end of public school, and they were celebrating not having to pay those few dollars in taxes.
I have a special needs child that I could not home school even if I wanted to. And I can’t imagine what private school would take her. Heck, my older one’s ADHD probably would have gotten him kicked out of most private schools.
People don’t even think about kids like mine when they say things about how it would just be so easy to not have public education.
This happens everywhere now. The theater, the grocery store, a concert. We need a society wide solution because our kids should be safe EVERYWHERE – walking down the street, going to the grocery store, going to the movie theater. Every family deserves safe schools.