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For 31 kids, this is what it's like to go to resegregated schools

 
Published Sept. 1, 2015

Here, the kitchen stove beeps. There, a mother knocks on her son's door. For the family uprooted by rats and mold, the motel's front desk calls.

It's 7 a.m. and alarms are going off all across south St. Petersburg.

It's time for school.

For thousands of children in Pinellas County's black neighborhoods that is reason to worry. Schools aren't a place to learn, they're a place to fear.

Children cry to their mothers. They fake stomachaches.

And then they're on their way.

To Campbell Park. To Fairmount Park. To Lakewood, Maximo, or Melrose. The five worst elementary schools in Pinellas County­ — all among the very worst schools in Florida — have seats with their name tags on them.

Click to read their stories.