Read about the honor student working two jobs to support herself and her siblings who was jailed for missing too many days of school here at the Huffington Post. (Excerpt below)
Diane Tran, a 17-year-old honor student in Texas, was forced to spend the night in jail last week after missing too many classes, KHOU-11’s Sherry Williams reports.
The Willis High School junior, who helps support two siblings, has both a full time and part-time job. She said that she’s often too tired to go to school.
“She goes from job to job from school,” Devin Hill, one of Tran’s classmates, told KHOU-11. “She stays up until 7:00 in the morning doing her homework.”
In an interview with KHOU-11, Tran said she takes AP Spanish, college level algebra and dual credit English and history courses. Her parents divorced and no longer live near her, so she lives with the family that owns the wedding venue where she works on weekends.
According to Texas law, if a student has ten or more unexcused absences within a six-month period, the school district may refer the student to a juvenile court. “In such cases, resolution of the issue is entirely in the hands of the court,” reads a statement on the website of the Willis Independent School District.
Anytime the law gets involved with petty school affairs, it really lights me up. This is beyond ridiculous. Let’s just add her to Our Horrible Children list.
There is something very, very wrong with this “justice system.” America makes up less than 5% of the world population, but holds almost 25% of the world’s inmates, with the largest prison population in the world. People are arrested and strip-searched for non-criminal offenses when no suspicion of any wrongdoing exists. Why would you take someone in and have them strip-searched and jailed for not having a dog on a leash, or not having a bell on a bike? There is no denying we have become a Big Brother, heavy-handed police state, growing more rigid and heartless each week. Drones, strip searches, arresting children, babies on no-fly lists, tasering pregnant women and children, cops killing people with little to no repercussions, sexual assault by cops and prison guards, all around rampant police brutality and abuse of power. This has got to stop. NOW.
GET LOUD.
The Time Times 