Shadow Schools, or: Keeping the Kids off the Damned Street! Options

[Speed Wraith]

So my group has a teenaged character in it. A character that the other characters more or less dote on (except the recently burned ex-special forces guy, but he’s just generally detached), and they don’t like her being out of school. Of course, they’re also not putting her in any typical school as she’s a technomancer and socially inept from too much time in a MCT laboratory. She’s clearly a special needs child. So one of the players suggested looking into some sort of “Shadow School� for the kid; reasoning that such things must exist in some way. I’ve been putting a lot of thought into this (I wish I could find my copy of Neo-Anarchist’s Guide to Real Life because that would be the only book that might cover this topic that I can think of) and have decided to put my thoughts up here for review and ideas and critique. So here you go: Education For Those Outside Mainstream Society. Have at it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

The Low End
On the low end of the schooling spectrum are schools that are little than more cheap daycare consisting of one or two adult metahumans taking care of a dozen or more children of various ages. In general these places are a dumping ground for low or squatter lifestyle children while their parents slave at McHugh’s or sling drugs on a street corner. Little to no education occurs in a location like this, and the proprietors probably make more money off of government assistance than their clients.

Benefits: Cheap, dirt cheap. Records are rarely kept or verified.
Drawbacks: Little supervision over the children in the daycare’s custody. Prone to abusive employees or open to heavy neglect.

How the Other Half Lives
Those with money receive the best of everything, including education. Those who can afford them will often use large private schools to socialize and educate their children, as well as keeping them out of their parent’s hair. Schools of this quality range in cost, and the more expensive the school the better the classes, facilities, and instructors. In addition, a lot of these schools have specialty programs for all sorts of tastes and cultural backgrounds.

Benefits: High quality education. Secure facility and large staff.
Drawbacks: Heavy record keeping and a lot of background checks. Bribes in the form of donations can often get faculty at these schools to look the other way or let paperwork slide, but this increases the cost of the schooling to the next highest level of life style.

Shadow Schools
Some denizens of the shadows may not be able to afford the bribes to get a child into a high-end school, and working as a shadow runner can be dangerous not just for one’s self, but also for their family. That is why most major sprawls contain at least one Shadow School. Shadow Schools are hard to fully quantify as each one is unique. Almost all of them are used by their clients to keep their kids safe while working the shadows, and to discourage the children from becoming involved (or more deeply involved) with criminal activities. The education provided by these schools almost always includes basic skills such as reading, writing, mathmatics and basic computer/matrix skills. Some of them also count more advanced studies as part of their curriculum, while others teach street survival skills to the children under their care. Generally, these schools are housed in the barrens, using abandoned buildings such as warehouses, apartment low-risers and stores. Despite their locations and campuses, these schools are fairly secure. Often, local gangs or organized criminal syndicates receive free or discounted ‘tuition’ for allowing these places to operate on their turf or for protecting them outright. In addition, an unspoken truce remains in effect for the schools with the local criminal and shadow running community. This truce even extends to most corporations and local government. It simply doesn’t pay to mess with a child in these schools as the parents would come after the offender en masse.

Benefits: No paperwork/bureaucracy. Affordable with far better quality than the low-end daycares. High Security.
Drawbacks: Lack of consistency in educational standards (i.e., you might not want your children gaining criminal skills but the school may teach them as a matter of course).