Girl, 15, Kept at Home by Mother, Begins School

She knows her ABCs and the days of the week. She can read a few basic words such as up, down, in and out.

Not bad for a first-grader. But this girl is 15, and, for reasons officials cannot explain, her mother had never enrolled her in school.

She has spent much of her life watching educational television and music videos, officials said. Except for running the occasional errand with her mother, it appears the girl rarely left home.

The teen, who special education teachers say is shy and surprisingly well-spoken for a child so sheltered, spent her first day as an eighth-grader Thursday at a school near her home on Chicago’s South Side.

School officials, who refused to identify the girl, say she was placed in the eighth grade because it is most appropriate to her age. They expect to complete an assessment of her skills next week and will decide whether she will be placed in a different grade, said Sue Gamm, the district’s chief specialized services officer.

“She’s a very sweet kid,” Gamm said. “She’s refreshingly like a regular kid. She pretty much was accepting of her circumstance. This is all she’s known.”

School officials say the girl dreams of being a teacher and may have picked up some of her basic knowledge from an 8-year-old sister in the second grade or a 26-year-old brother in college.

“She is bright,” said Maribeth Vander Weele, Chicago schools investigation chief. “There does not appear to be any sort of physical handicap. She’s very excited about going to school. She’s very excited about learning. We do not know why her mother chose to leave this child at home.”

The mother, who is undergoing a psychiatric evaluation, is unlikely to face any criminal charges, Vander Weele said, though state workers are investigating.

Authorities learned of the girl this month when her mother called the city’s truancy hotline to find out what would happen to a parent who didn’t send her child to school.

Although the teen is getting special attention from the district, it will not be easy for her to catch up, academically or socially, Harvard University developmental psychologist Sheldon White said.

“I doubt she can pick up in her schoolwork,” White said.