She wanted to keep her son in his school district. It was more challenging than it seemed

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She wanted to keep her son in his school district. It was more challenging than it seemed

[html]Elias Washington, right, plays on his phone along with his mother Sechita McNair, left, and adopted brother, Derrick McNair-White, center, as they ride the bus to Atlanta on June 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

2025-11-14T05:23:45Z

                                       

ATLANTA (AP) — It was the worst summer in years. Sechita McNair’s family took no vacations. Her younger boys didn’t go to camp. Her van was repossessed, and her family nearly got         data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/article/eviction-school-transfer-absenteeism-suspension-99841ffaa06984ce5bb1b0cdcf1bca6d">evicted — again.

But she accomplished the one thing she wanted most. A few weeks before school started, McNair, an out-of-work film industry veteran barely getting by driving for Uber, signed a lease in the right Atlanta neighborhood so her eldest son could stay at his high school.

As she pulled up outside the school on the first day, Elias, 15, stepped onto the curb in his new basketball shoes and cargo pants. She inspected his face, noticed wax in his ears and grabbed a package of baby wipes from her rental car. She wasn’t about to let her eldest, with his young Denzel Washington looks, go to school looking “gross.”

He grimaced and broke away.

   
       
   

“No kiss? No hugs?” she called out.

Elias waved and kept walking. Just ahead of him, at least for the moment, sat something his mother had fought relentlessly for: a better education.

The link between where you live and where you learn

           
               
                   

   

       
   


       

       
     
   

   
   
       

   

   
       

   

   
       

   

   
       

   

   
       

   

   
       

   

   
       

   

   
       

   
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Sechita McNair, center, and sons Derrick McNair-White, left, and Malachi McNair-Nesbitt, right, walk to catch a city bus in Jonesboro, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

               
           
       
       
   

   
   
   


               
           
       

Last year, McNair and her three kids were evicted from their beloved apartment in the rapidly gentrifying Old Fourth Ward neighborhood of Atlanta. Like many evicted families, they went from living in a school district that         data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00380407251333651" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spends more money on students to one that spends less.

   
       



   

Thanks to federal laws protecting         data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-education-homeless-f413a24307e58eb257db9ccdd62e5464">homeless and evicted students, her kids were able to keep attending their Atlanta schools, even though the only housing available to them was in another county 40 minutes away. They also had the right to free transportation to those schools, but McNair says the district didn’t tell her about that until the school year ended. Their eligibility to remain in those schools expired at the end of last school year.

   
   
       
           
               
   
   


   
   

       
   

           
       
   
   

Still wounded by the death of his father and multiple housing displacements, Elias failed two classes last year, his freshman year. Switching schools now, McNair fears, would jeopardize any chance he has of recovering his academic life. “I need this child to be stable,” she says.

   
   

        data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/author/bianca-vazquez-toness">Bianca Vázquez Toness covers the intersection of education and children’s well-being. She led the nation in showing how many students were missing school after the pandemic — work that was honored as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

   

With just one week before school started, McNair drove extra Uber hours, borrowed money, secured rental assistance and ignored concerns about the apartment to rent a three-bedroom in the Old Fourth Ward. At $2,200 a month, it was the only “semi-affordable” apartment in the rapidly         data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/article/historic-black-gullah-geechee-communities-developers-gentrification-f5963d81d8e9d73a6812821d3a15dbc6">gentrifying ward that would rent to a single mom with a fresh eviction on her record.

On Zillow, the second-floor apartment, built in 2005, looked like a middle-class dream with its granite countertops, crown molding and polished wood floors. But up close, the apartment looked abused and held secrets McNair was only beginning to uncover.

The first sign something was wrong came early. When she first toured the apartment, it felt rushed, like the agent didn’t want her to look too closely. Then, even as they told her she was accepted, the landlord and real estate agent wouldn’t send her a “welcome letter” laying out the agreement, the rent and deposit she would pay. It seemed like they didn’t want to put anything in writing.

   
       
   

When the lease came, it was full of errors. She signed it anyway. “We’re back in the neighborhood!” she said. Elias could return to Midtown High School.

But even in their triumph, no one in the family could relax. Too many things were uncertain. And it fell to McNair — and only McNair — to figure it out.

The first day back

           
               
                   

   

       
   


       

       
     
   

   
   
       

   

   
       

   

   
       

   

   
       

   

   
       

   

   
       

   

   
       

   

   
       

   
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Sechita McNair, left, talks to her oldest son, Elias Washington, before he walks into Midtown High School for the first day of school on Aug. 4 in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)