It's both sad and amazing to see the role that schools have had to take on, from something like this to reduce student embarrassment and absences, things like basic vision and dental check ups in the school, seeking outside donations for basic school supplies that kids need but many cannot afford, programs for outside tutoring because some parents can't or won't provide their kids help at home, and schools that not only serve breakfast but send bagged dinners home with their kids and food for the weekend because many don't get adequate nutrition at home (including food for their non-school aged siblings).

It makes me really grateful that my wife and I are able to provide well for our kids, sad for those who don't have that and need to rely on their schools for some basic care issues, and unsure of how to introduce levels of need and disparity like this to my kids so they have empathy and compassion on other completely innocent kids who don't have it as well as they do.

Bummer, I thought this was going to be a rant on working mothers who rely on school as daycare.

Where I live rent has doubled in 5 years there are a ton of families that were getting along just fine when they had babies that are now struggling. This economy is really impacting people in different ways.

Washing machines in schools seems like a better idea to me that kids in struggling families smelling bad and dropping out of school.

If not orphanages, free public babysitting service. My wife is a teacher, there is a student who has numerous documented behavior problems, violence related towards other students, teachers, parent volunteers. Parents are completely in denial and think little Johnny is an angel, mom actually said to the administration, "you can't keep expelling little Johnny or I'll lose my job".

Parents refuse to get little Johnny tested for behavioral disorders or counselling. They just expect the school to deal with him.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

D'Kid goes to what we shall call an "Economically Diverse" public high school [she was once called "a rich white kid" because we live in a development with yards, instead of low-income rental townhouses]. They also have a school uniform policy

I can see a child skipping school because her uniform isn't clean for the reasons they state in the link


having an option to have her clothes done at school [and maybe having an exemption from dress-code while her clothes were in the laundry], would help keep her on track; nothing is guaranteed of course, but every bit helps

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

It's both sad and amazing to see the role that schools have had to take on

It's just another example of government taking over people's lives.

I'm not sure if that should be in pink or not.

Some of the programs, like school supplies and bagged dinner/weekend food, are provided by non-profits who have identified a need and partnered with the place most able to make sure the need is met efficiently, the schools. I know someone personally who spearheads a program to collect winter coats for kids at a local middle school that has a high percentage of kids near or below the poverty line, a program that's pretty darn important in Michigan's climate and one that might not be pulled off efficiently without the school's partnership...as much as I hate to see schools needing to get involved in such things.

I'm a proponent of limited government personally, but my leash to meet needs expands greatly when it comes to defenseless, innocent children being left on the sidelines without programs in place.

One of our schools actually just converted an old wing into a homeless shelter for young adults. I think its a good thing for these kids who need to get out of some of homes they live in.

The unfortunate part is that the funding for kids and school resources keeps getting cut or gets eaten up by the bureaucracy.

Getting washing machines seems like a relatively cheap solution. I'm sure even Maytag and other companies would be willing to donate them as a goodwill item.

I'm a proponent of limited government personally, but my leash to meet needs expands greatly when it comes to defenseless, innocent children being left on the sidelines without programs in place.

The problem is that more programs are not the answer. There are more now than ever and not surprisingly, more people who need them, that's the way these things go. Programs like this seem to create more need rather than solve the problems. They get larger and larger and if anyone suggests they cut back, they are demonized.

That's how governments grow. What starts as a way to help, becomes a right and there is no turning back.

The myth of American rugged individualism is always trumped by the reality of human nature. We live in our heads with the way things ought to be and have problems grappling with reality.

I can appreciate that, but the question then becomes: what's the alternative and who's willing to step up and meet the need when the needs are acute?

Americans used to take care of each other locally. Our churches stepped up. Neighbors stepped up. Families stepped up.

That doesn't exist like it once did, not even close to what it once did. It's easier for those of us who have the means to intellectualize and theorize about a better way while completely overlooking those who currently have no way.

I don't know what the answer is. I just know that it's probably something that can't be solved without more hands on deck than there currently are.

Hands that are more interested in helping because it's the right thing to do, than because there might something in it for them

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

If free washing machines help keep kids in the classroom then it's a good thing. I just can't imagine how hard it must be for these kids. I recently read Hillbilly Elegy and it gives a good look into what it's like growing up in a poor culture.

What happens when gov't can no longer afford to provide breakfast and lunch, clean clothes, after school programs etc etc etc.? And no one in the community is used to meeting these needs. Gov't is generally broke and living on borrowed money.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

I can appreciate that, but the question then becomes: what's the alternative and who's willing to step up and meet the need when the needs are acute?

Yeah, I don't know the answer either. It seems to me that's it a perfect example of how governments step in to fix a problem. The initial reason for doing it is to provide a good service to help those who can't help themselves. Then, it slowly grows and grows and becomes something that people expect or even demand, but the underlying problem of why they need it in the first place becomes lost. Now, if you try to take it away, it would cause a lot of hardships, more so than the initial hardship which justified implementing it in the first place.

I don't know how that works but it seems to be the way things evolve.

Maybe because tax rates are at near historic lows while 60% of wealth gains over the last decade went to one percent of the population.

Our citizens have more wealth than we ever had but have not divided the pieces of that pie as unevenly since 1928.

A lot of people equate MAGA with the 1950s but the marginal tax rates at the top were nearly double what they are now. And income was more evenly distributed.

Not to mention with the opioid crisis in many poor areas the schools are more and more like orphanages.

Yet an article about a private company donating washers and dryers is called out as a problem.

Public schools are failing at a slightly slower pace than families. So it might be time to give "other folks" a try at this public education thing.

But as Judge Smails said, the world needs ditch diggers too!

The washers and dryers aren't a problem, the problem is that evidently, there are more than a few 'parents' who chose to have children, although they are unable to care for them in the most basic ways.

As others have mentioned, these are stop gap solutions to the symptoms of a larger problem, that is never addressed.

And to be clear, the problem isn't the poor people don't have enough money to provide for their kids, it's that they keep having kids despite not being able to care care of themselves, let alone their kids.

It will never be addressed because of the deep American fear of sex and the push to have families. We want lots of kids and we don't want anyone to tell us how to parent.

With an attitude like that, they're all going to end up working at the lumber yard.

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"The right to party is a battle we have fought, but we'll surrender and go Amish... NOT!" -Wayne Campbell

I think it's a cultural problem and I don't know how that is fixed.

I don't know. Can they really afford to do it now with the debt being what it is? Cost aside should the government be doing this? It's a very complex issue. I'm not very sympathetic to able bodied people who choose not to work but my heart goes out to these kids.

At the end of the day we have people having kids that cannot afford to take care of them. Those children start life with a very real disadvantage that few recover from.

The problem with that statement, while factually correct, is that it's an easy thing to flippantly say for those of in a position of excess. Meanwhile we live in a culture where most people would rather seek out other things, seek individual materialism, and like to pretend that poverty doesn't exist to the degree that it does for some kids and the acute issue of innocent kids suffering continues. Those benevolent hands just don't exist to the degree that the problem does and the problem grows because the wealth gap continues to grow.

We have to actually be honest about the issue: As a society we just don't really care about those kids. We can say that we do, but we don't. It's like saying that the American government cares about peace. It doesn't, because if it did we wouldn't have a military as large as we do.

There's definitely a cultural problem and it's complicated. Look at some of the communities that are the poorest and look at the family dynamics; huge percentages of kids in poor communities are growing up without fathers, not just in the household but not in their lives at all. The problems of that from the economic to the cultural to the psychological to the educational are massive. Some of it is just purely cultural within what we as a society and the communities value; some of it is things like our incarceration systems, which disproportionately impact men in poor communities with some crimes that we may really not need to keep people locked up for. At the end of the day the issues are beyond complex and there are those of us who can sit on the outside of it personally without being directly effected, but it's troubling to see these issues creeping beyond being small and abnormal & limited to the poorest of communities to even things like suburban districts needing to send food home with certain kids so they have dinner.

I guess I should have read the article. Sounded like another example of schools being asked to do more and more outside their normal mission. And in a way it is if teachers are asked to do the laundry the articles said teachers or a parent. We could start a whole another thread about taxation.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot