The Much, Much Nicer Social Worker

I just got a call from the district level social worker.  She said that our girls will remain at their school for the rest of the year.

I cried.

I always thought it was weird to cry because you are so happy.  But there you have it - I cried.  For, like, 5 minutes.

She was really nice.  She said that she called the state of Virginia, who enforce the McKinney Vento Act with school districts in this state.  The folks in Virginia are savvy to how the State Department works.  They say that State Department folks returned quickly to the United States are provided with housing and with resources to live off of.  This is true.  Virginia says that removes us from the homeless category.  The social worker agreed that we were forcefully and suddenly removed from our home, but also agreed that the State Department is taking care of us.

She said that we already have the permission from our principal to stay at school, and so the matter is finished.  She chatted with me about how my kids are doing under this transition, and I said they're doing great because of their place at school.  She was very supportive, saying thats always her goal. 

I did not argue with her about whether or not we should qualify as homeless.  It is a Virginia policy decision, and has now become a moot point.

I did not ask her how I should have approached the problem in the first place.  In the last week, I began to wonder what I should have done differently.  The school registrar would not discuss enrollment or connect me to the principal until I mentioned homelessness.  Is this like the political asylum policy?  According to US immigration law (Dave will quickly correctly me if I'm wrong), a person can only apply for political asylum from within the United States.  So, a person must lie on their visa application to enter the United States if they hope to request asylum.  This is our federal immigration policy.  Also useful in other situations?  As I tried to pack away the lessons learned, I thought - how should I have approached this differently?

Quickly, I made a decision.  I'm just going to plan on never being permanently ejected from another country again.