The fund is a benefit of being a government employee. It is a death benefit. There’s a specific name for it I can’t recall at the moment. In case of death of the employee, the children of the employee get a certain amount of money provided the fulfill the stated requirements. Note it covered through age 23, as long as “still in school” which also includes college. Upon his getting kicked out of school and NASA receiving notice of that condition, the money stopped getting paid out. There’s no money to recover.
It seems to me that you could have transferred to another school, but I suppose that would require the principal there being a better sort than the jagoff you had.
And why all the judgemental responses, folks? The thread didn’t seem to me to be “oh pity me”, it was posted in GQ and I read it as “was this legal?” And to me it doesn’t sound legal. In fact, first recourse would have been a direct appeal to the school board. Although perhaps it would have been financially untenable, a lawyer would have been damn useful. You might even could have got the ACLU involved, or someone pro bono or something. I mean, your aunt and uncle were not your legal guardians, you were just living with them to have place to live and reduce expenses, right? I can’t see that the principal would have the authority to kick you out of school if you were legally an adult. Of course he could have been using some other loophole, but if you fulfilled the requirements to be enrolled in that school, that judgment would be difficult to justify.
Austin public schools were a bit messed up during the mid 1980’s. If I remember correctly, there was a change in superintendents around this time. In fact, only recently has the district started to settle down. I am a member of Lanier High School class of 1986, and I can tell you that our school had severe administrative shake-ups in the four years I was there.
Now I am a public school teacher (not in Austin ISD). At this time, the Texas Education Code ( http://www.tea.state.tx.us/juris/tec.html ) requires schools to keep students until their twenty-second birthday or until high school graduation, whichever comes first. (I’m going on memory, I didn’t actually search the code right now.) There are (I beleive) instances where public schools are responsible for students even longer, but that has to do with disabilities and such.
I can’t imagine a public school letting a student go. Texas public schools are evaluated on an annual basis (except for 2002-03 because of changes in testing). Drop-out rates (now called “longitudinal completion rates”) are a central feature of this evaluation. If a school or school district has a high number of drop-outs, it will adversely affect their rating. Superintendents and principals are hired and fired based on those ratings, so pressure is very high to keep the standards up. Austin ISD recently got in a lot of hot water for falsely stating their drop out rates (and other information).
I am not an expert in school law, but I have been in the biz for eleven years.
Such Texas bashing in this thread! I had no idea we were so ridiculed in the rest of the country. Texas really isn’t so bad. Come on down and visit.
See? Texans really do live in their own little world…Us Colorado-ans loved to pick on you guys! (Where’s the best place to be in Texas? The middle- then no matter what direction you head, you’re getting out…)
There is/was something weird about Texas laws concerning children back then. I lived outside of Dallas for 3 years until I was 6 (when we moved to Colorado). We kept the house we had and when my father passed away, I got half of it. We sold it in '81, and it took the Texas authorities 2.5 years to sort everything out while they ‘worked in MY best interests’…Well, after they sorted out my ‘best interests’ the lawyers took over half of the money. Which was put into a Trust, and which I got when I turned 18, which is what I used to live on when I moved out my Senior year in HS in 1988…(See, I did get back to the OP!)
I never had any hassles from the school system in Colorado, except that they also got mad at me when I signed myself out of school for the day. And I’d have to admit that if they did, it still wouldn’t of mattered to me- my mom was nuts (still is a little, but we get along these days). So I have sympathies for you Lightnin’, that sucks. $150 a month back then would have paid for most of my rent, and I lived in an above average place. Plus finishing HS and all…sorry.
Why didn’t you move back to where your old friends were and go back to your original school?
I’d have a hard time forgiving your aunt and uncle…I’d probably write them a nice, long, bitch letter telling them that they were the direct reason why you didn’t graduate, and that you would have if only they had minded their own biznis.
Why don’t you call your old school and ask? I’m sure you could socially-engineer an answer out of whoever is there now.
Oh, and lastly, even though your industry doesn’t care about the education, you should still give college a try. The main thing I learned was not WHAT to think, but HOW to think. Best thing for me, really. And community colleges are chock full o’ people just like you (as well as some real cute co-eds!).