By Betty Márquez Rosales, Photo: Alison Yin/EdSource, EdSource, March 31, 2023
Each morning begins the same way for Hattie Tate: She reviews a list of Oakland students at the local juvenile facility who have been booked, released or scheduled for a court appearance. For over a decade, her job as an educator and administrator has been to secure the quickest possible re-enrollment of students into their local schools once they are released from the juvenile facility.
But the re-enrollment process is rarely straightforward. The students that Tate works with have at times been in and out of the local juvenile justice system more than once, have experienced traumatic situations that can range from sexual assault to housing insecurity and sometimes have difficulty trusting adults.
By the time Tate meets them, school is rarely their priority. Plus, they may be missing school records, may have been enrolled in various schools, and may be facing resistance from their local public school to being re-enrolled. This means that her job includes figuring out ways to not only re-enroll them into school upon their release but to make sure they remain engaged in their classes and attend every day.
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