School fines mum for letting daughter skip school to visit dying Grandma

When Charlene White's mother was diagnosed
with cervical cancer, her first instinct was to pull
her daughter out of school for a week so that the
pair could spend some time together. She never
expected to be stuck with a fine.
That's exactly what happened, though. The single
mom, from Yeovil in England, is now on the hook
for nearly $100 for taking her daughter out of
school to go on a weeklong vacation with her
dying grandmother. White told Daily Mail that
when her mother, Sharon, was diagnosed with the
deadly cancer, she was advised to spend time
with her family — doctor's orders.
"The doctor said to do what she wants to
do now because she won't have the chance
to again."
What the grandmother of five wanted to do was
take her kids and grandkids on a short coastal
vacation to Devon, England. She booked the
tickets herself, and White happily pulled her 7-
year-old, Kia, out of school to spend some time
with her ailing grandmother while she still could.
Unfortunately that resulted in the school fining
White for truancy, in part because Kia had been
absent before for an illness. While no one would
argue that it's really important for kids to be
consistently present at school if they're attending
a public institution, penalizing a little girl for
seeing her dying grandmother is way out of order.
White plans to pay the fine with the hope that it
will relieve the additional stress placed on her
mother during a time when that's the last thing
she needs. According to White, her mother feels
guilty for possibly getting them in trouble. In the
grandmother's own words:
"All I wanted to do was just spend time
with them all. I'm not going to be able to
see them get married or do anything with
them. If this doesn't count as a special
circumstance, then I don't know what
does."
To pour salt on the wound, while Kia was absent
for five school days in August, White wasn't
notified of the fine until October, after a
conference in which Kia's teachers assured her
mother that she was doing well in school and
that they had no concerns whatsoever about her
education.