Like my story on teachers forming a grassroots system to support families in need, this story with my colleague Patty Machelor again highlights the lack of support for vulnerable children and families, which existed before the pandemic but has only become more apparent and devastating. With kids unable to be physically in school five days a week, teachers aren’t spotting signs of neglect and abuse the way they would in person. As teachers’ calls to the Department of Child Services are down, calls from police finding children in dangerous situations are up. And while over 1,000 kids, in Tucson alone, have completely fallen off schools’ radar, there is no official mechanism to check on or find these children, putting that job largely on the backs of schools and teachers.
— Danyelle Khmara
Pete Hodap, a Tucson Unified School District school safety officer, walks up to the home of a student to inquire why the student has not logged in for classes on a TUSD-issued laptop.
A Tucson teacher calls 911 after a student on Zoom flashes what appears to be a handgun.
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Another teacher realizes that her young student and a sibling had been fending for themselves as their single mother was bedridden with COVID-19.
Then there’s a parent with several children struggling with online school who says the district keeps calling, and it’s starting to feel like harassment.
Meanwhile, local police are finding more children and teens in the mix when they answer domestic violence calls, investigate drug cases and fatal drug overdoses.
These are just a few glimpses at what the coronavirus pandemic has wrought in the lives of Tucson’s vulnerable families, children and teens. The Arizona Daily Star conducted an online survey of about 150 teachers and parents to learn what they are seeing and experiencing.
It’s unclear what’s happening in the lives of well over 1,100 young people who never show up for online school or only attend sporadically. While numbers from the Vail and Tucson Unified school districts were not provided for this news article, the combined total of students unaccounted for in Tucson’s seven other major school districts is at least 1,160, with some students missing since last spring.
That number increases dramatically if students who attend school very sporadically are included.
Contact reporter Patty Machelor at pmachelor@tucson.com or 806-7754. On Twitter: @pattymachstar
Patty Machelor
Reporter
Danyelle Khmara
Reporter
