A new survey of more than 1,000 working parents shows the unfinished parental juggling act occurring to meet work obligations while dropping kids off at school. Most parents face impossible demands making school dropoff work. Many have even lost their jobs due to frequently missing work. With the difficulties that single parents encounter, Elizabeth Rivera is the poster child. She artfully coordinates the three different school schedules and cultures while working full time on a very intense job.
Elizabeth Rivera, a South Side Chicago resident with three kids in three schools. She cares for her 5-year-old grandson. She recently lost her partner, which increases her obstacles. He was the father of her two high school-age children, which compounded this experience and made it doubly difficult for her. Rivera’s typical shift runs 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Each day, she endures the ordeal of her kids’ staggered school start times, turning on-time drop-offs into an impossible feat.
To further compound her issues, Rivera said she only receives about three hours of sleep per day during the school year. Unable to fulfill the needs of school drop-off. Consequently, she got terminated from her job at an Amazon warehouse in the Houston area due to her frequent absences. For now, she’s waiting the results of a background check for a new job and doing her best to keep up with her family’s needs.
In Long Island, New York, Dorothy Criscuolo is battling the same inner demons. While her two children go to a school that offers students’ bus service, Criscuolo chooses not to take it. Her kids have recently received diagnoses on the neurodiversity spectrum. She thinks the negative environment of the bus will impact their overall well-being. Instead, since she takes her children to school in the morning, her wife can pick them up.
“I can’t have my kids on a bus for 45 minutes, with all the screaming and yelling, and then expect them to be OK once they get to school, be regulated and learn.” – Dorothy Criscuolo
The issue extends beyond these two families. Many parents are struggling with similar predicaments. As a result, an alarming one-third of parents said school drop off has made them late for work. Alarmingly, 11% reported that transportation challenges have caused them to lose a job.
Here in North Carolina, Meredyth Saieed shares what it was like in her instance. She had experienced three years of homelessness living in a family homeless shelter with her two children. Now, they have the new pressure of juggling school drop-offs on top of this. Saieed’s experience is further compounded due to the fact that her father has been imprisoned since May. In this case, it leaves her wholly accountable for caring for the children.
“Sometimes when you’ve got kids and you don’t have a village, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.” – Meredyth Saieed
The reality poses profound questions about system support for families. Joanna McFarland, the CEO and co-founder of HopSkipDrive, wouldn’t go as far. Yet, they are required to make sure their students have a reliable way to get to and from school. This is a big change that will reduce the burden of test prep anxiety on parents. They are already stretched thin with intense work and family duties.
Traditionally, parents tackled this issue by leveraging informal networks or working in jobs with flexible scheduling to navigate the high-stakes challenges of school drop-off survival. Franklin, one of the parents who participated in the statewide survey, said her family has received help that has been invaluable to their success.
“Most of the kids, they have people that help out with dropping them off and picking them up.” – Franklin
Not all families have the means to do that. In the case of Rivera, Criscuolo, and Saieed, their stories highlight the national ramifications of failing support systems for America’s working parents. The school transportation burden disproportionately falls on those who lack an informal support system.
As the needs facing parents have expanded and changed, it is clear that these solutions need to change with parents’ needs. The intersection of work and family life requires a reevaluation of how communities and schools can support working parents effectively.
