It's sad that kids have to live this way. It's sadder that in Obama's America it's not likely to get any better.
“Her way of dealing with it was to inform the school nurse who would then speak with the parents.”
It seems to me that it is better to deal with this on a one to one basis.
I grew up in NYC and went to both public and parochial schools on the east side of Manhattan, my classmates included both some very wealthy and some very poor children. (This was one thing that was great about NYC back then.)
I don’t remember anyone being unclean.
I’ve had a few kids like this in my 19 years of teaching.
One was so bad that my co-workers and I went to the dollar store and bought some sweatpants and socks for him. The nurse would meet him at the door and direct him discreetly to the showers in the locker room. During the day, the nurse would wash his clothes, and at the end of the day, she would call him to her office where he’d go in the back and change into his now clean clothes. If he came in smelling bad the next day, we’d do the same thing.
His parents knew about it, but the boy continued to come to school dirty until the end of the year.
My school had a slightly different approach. Teachers brought in used clothes from their own households, and the garments were stored in an old unused closet. There was always a huge variety of jeans/t-shirts for both boys and girls.
When a kid came in fi9lthy, and needed clean clothes, the custodian would let the kid shower in his mop washing stall.
This was done without any fanfare and it got the job done.
More and more, schools are expected to do the job of the parent. Sad but true.
I won’t even raise the issue of kids coming to school not having winter coats come December.