Every night, N-Dia Layne would set the alarm clock on her mother's cellphone for 4:45a.m. If the two of them were not on the subway platform at 103rdStreet and Broadway by 6:20 a. m., there was no way N-Dia would be on time for school. Even so, N-Dia was often late. By the end of October, she was just one lateness away from the six allowed a student for the entire term. Ms. Layne and N-Dia, 9, live at the Regent Family Residence for the Homeless. They moved here last summer from their original family shelter in Brownsville, Brooklyin. On a recent schoolday, N-Dia waited on the subway station at East 103rdStreet. N-Dia and her mother boarded the No. 1 train, and then changed to the No. 3 at 96thStreet. After 96thStreet, N-Dia napped on her mother's shoulder when Ms. Layne was listening to music. N-Dia often does her homework on the ride home. A few stops before Sutter Avenue, where N-Dia's school is, Ms. Layne woke her up. Then she hurried her daughter to school before the first bell. "It's unfair, and it makes me feel upset," N-Dia said.  "I don't want her to grow up and have to go through what I went through," said Ms. Layne, who transferred  to different schools many times. "It affected my grade greatly." In N-Dia's case, the efforts to keep her at her charter school, which received a C on its last city progress report, failed. It was agreed that N-Dia should attend school closer to the shelter. " I cried during the meeting," Ms. Layne said. "I really wanted to keep her in that school where she had some type of stability." What made Ms. Layne cry?
N-Dia had to move to a school near her house N-Dia had to move to a shelter near her school N-Dia made no progress N-Dia felt too tired.