http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eJrKi0jKao
Abandoned by her parents, Diane Tran works a full and part time job to support two siblings while being a honor student taking AP courses and college level courses, but was jailed for a night and fined $100 after missing more classes from sheer exhaustion. Houston’s KHOU covered this case about the Willis High School junior. Judge Lanny Moriaty, who sentenced Tran, says:
If you let one (truant student) run loose, what are you gonna’ do with the rest of ’em? Let them go too?
I can see the need to make an example of someone to reduce truancy, but exactly what kind of example is this?
After Tran’s parents divorced, they moved away and she now lives with the family of one of her employers. News of her story has spread, and there is now a change.org petition to the judge to have her sentence changed. There are also efforts to raise funds for her family. Oddly enough, while many commenters (this writer included) on this story place much blame on her parents, Tran’s friends say that she has feels that she has shamed them.
