SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — Dozens of families are still displaced by the floods in mid-January and now, we’re hearing stories from parents who say their children haven’t been able to make it to school since the day of the flood.
Joshua Escalante answers honestly when asked about his favorite subject at school. He’s a 7th grader at Knox Middle School and loves P.E. and math, but it’s been over three weeks since he has attended class because his entire family was displaced from their Southcrest home on January 22nd.
The family lost a truck, three trailers, and everything inside the house they rent.
His mom, Karina Escalante, tells ABC 10News the hotel they were offered is too far from his school, nearly 5 miles away, in Bonita. Escalante leaves for work at three in the morning, in the family’s only car that didn’t flood.
She says the school suggested a city bus pass, but she’s afraid to let her son do that alone. Before the flood, the school bus would pick Joshua up just a block away from his home.
The Escalante family isn’t alone. The San Diego County Office of Education said in an email, anecdotally, they have heard of a significant impact on attendance as a result of the storms but told us local districts could give us specific numbers about attendance impacts.
We reached out to San Diego Unified multiple times over the last few days, and they told us they’d look into it but so far, haven’t responded.
Karina says her son’s school has expressed concern about his absence and said they’d tried to get him a hotspot to do his work.
Both mother and son hope they can get moved to a hotel closer to his school bus stop so he can return to class.
