March 16

At a meeting of the Harper Lee Elementary School PTA, in Mobile, Alabama, faculty announced that a new program, wherein all homework assignments would be done and submitted by students using a new, cloud-based portal, was going to go into effect for 5th graders. For the most part, parents looked pleased. One parent, though - Jessie Monroe, a single mother who earned her living as a bookkeeper - raised her hand to say that her family didn't own a computer or have wifi, because they couldn't afford such luxuries. Principal Charlie Mansfield prevented his staff from replying, and took the mike, himself, to say, "Miss Monroe, we're here to give your child an education. Other than that, it's your job to see she gets what she needs. I advise you figure something out."

At the end of the evening, after all the parents had left, Mansfield heard a couple of his staff saying they'd felt badly for Jessie Monroe. Their sympathies were put to rest, though, when Mansfield noted that, if Jessie Monroe owned both a car and a cell phone, she could find the money, someplace, to get her kid a laptop computer.