Never mind the kids who are being murdered by violent parents or drugged to death by foster mothers, the Administration for Children's Services is busy checking up on the home environments of kids who skip gym class too many times, even though that's not technically a violation worthy of an ACS home visit.
Like her son blowing off gym class, Karen Dussack skipped a meeting at Bronx Science to talk about her progeny having 8 unexcused non-consecutive absences and his danger of possibly failing gym. So the school called ACS and reported Dussack as a possible abuser via "educational neglect." Caseworkers spent about two hours in the Dussack home making sure that the kids were well fed and housed and uninjured. The agency followed up with a call to the family doctor.
City regulations require that schools report absences of 10 consecutive days or 20 days in a semester, which will result in an investigation by ACS. Michel Dussack only missed eight non-sequential days due to family emergencies, like funerals, but Bronx Science decided to be proactive after his mother skipped the interventional meeting regarding his aversion to gym.
ACS is probably in full ass-covering mode after several high-profile incidents where children who were obviously injured and abused wound up dead within hours of visits by agency caseworkers. It has to be thankless work that is never noticed until a kid dies horribly and then the large volume of their good work well done is buried in bad press.
