Too late too often, so no prom for her

Atiya Lanier has been dreaming about her senior prom since she was a little girl.

The princess dress. The memories. The red carpet-like send-off by friends and relatives, including both of her great-grandmothers.

Except now, the 17-year-old can't go. School officials told her recently that she couldn't attend the May 27 rite of passage because she's been late getting to school so many times - about 60 times, actually.

"When you get 60 latenesses, it's hard to justify [her] participating," said Wendy Shapiro, principal of W. B. Saul High School, in Roxborough. "That's one-third of the school year. In the real world, if you were late to work 60 times, you wouldn't have a job."

But Atiya's mother, Monica Kitt, said that it's the real world that she's trying to protect her children from by insisting that she drive them to school every morning.

Kitt, who blames herself for her daughter's persistent lateness, survived a childhood scarred by repeated sexual abuse, and was raped as a young woman. Because of this trauma, she's terrified that something awful might happen if her kids walk or take the bus to school.

"I was told I couldn't have children [as a result of the rapes]," said Kitt, who also has two young boys. "So with my children, I am extra cautious. I know it's a problem I have to let go. But I'd rather my daughter be late than something terrible happen to her."

Her obsession to protect her children is so great that she has them go online to memorize the faces of registered sex offenders who live in the area, she said.

"I know it's my fault that she's late, but don't take [the prom] away from her," she said.

Every morning, Kitt said, they leave their home on 2nd Street near Chew Avenue by 7:40 a.m., and she drops off her sons at their school three blocks away by 7:50, she said. She then travels for roughly 15 to 20 minutes to get to the high school on Henry Avenue, she said.

But with morning traffic on Roosevelt Boulevard, the trip can sometimes take up to 40 minutes, she said.

Kitt, a single mother who also runs a day-care center near her home, said that she's tried leaving the house earlier and has taken alternate routes, but most days Atiya still arrives just after the 8:10 morning bell has rung.

"Sometimes when we pull up to the school, I ask her, 'Did we make it?' but we don't," she said.

Shapiro instituted a policy at the beginning of the year that punishes students who are late more than six times per marking period - meaning those on track to be late more than 24 times for the year - by not allowing them to participate in school-related events.

Kitt claims that she wasn't properly notified of the policy until it was too late. She said that the school told Atiya in mid-March that she couldn't go to the prom, after they'd spent $300 on a dress.

Kitt tried to explain as much to Shapiro, and her daughter wrote the principal a letter about how much the prom means to her, but their pleas did no good, she said.

Shapiro countered that parents had been notified of the policy at the beginning of the year, and that parents of students who were on the cusp of violating it, including Kitt, were sent letters warning them to obey the policy or face the consequences.

Shapiro said that she's been flexible with implementing the policy, allowing students with up to 40 latenesses to participate in school activities.

"What we did was finally look at students who were borderline, sometimes buses come late," Shapiro said. "We wanted to give them leeway because this is the first year" of the policy.

In Atiya's case, she said, there was no working around it.

The bottom line for Atiya, though, is that she won't have the glamorous night that she's been hoping for since she was forced to wear a back brace to treat the scoliosis she endured when she was younger.

The prom was to be her moment to shine.

"After everything I've been through, I just want my moment to be beautiful," she said. "I was just waiting for my turn."

Kitt, who regrets not going to her own prom years ago, said that she's devastated for her daughter, but also disappointed in herself for letting Atiya down, she said.

"She deserves to celebrate her achievements," she said. "Once it's over, it's over."