📎 SWANK Dispatch: 27 Questions, 0 Answers — A Letter That Outlined the Whole Game
🗓️ 26 August 2020
Filed Under: institutional evasion, demand for specificity, parenting interrogation, compost toilet policing, pandemic risk ignored, lawful home education, disability accommodations, asthma protection, retaliatory safeguarding
“If you’re going to accuse me of endangering my children,
you’ll need to do better than vague concern and compost-phobia.”
— A Mother with a 27-Point List and a Very Clean Garden Bed
In this immaculate, no-nonsense response to a letter dated 19 August 2020, Polly Chromatic directs her attention to Ashley Smith-Joseph, Child Protection Worker in Grand Turk. What unfolds is not a rebuttal — it is a systematic, itemised dismantling of an unsubstantiated case file.
It is what happens when a mother demands evidence, citations, and legal authority — and expects to receive them in writing, not whispered through insinuation.
🗂️ I. 27 Questions. No Room to Hide.
The letter methodically asks for:
• The specific concern
• The basis for that concern
• And, where applicable, the legal foundation
From truancy dates that fall in summer holidays to questions about:
Clothing inside her own home
Her outdoor bamboo shower (for asthma accommodation)
Sleeping arrangements involving a $1000 hygienic mat
Temporary compost toilets used during renovation
Use of compost beds for animal and human waste — which is legal and ecologically informed
Every question demands clarity, law, and respect.
🧠 II. The Real Subject: Obfuscation by Authority
The letter reveals a key pattern:
Accusations after formal complaints were submitted
Concerns without citation
Assumptions about hygiene, learning, and health rooted in bias, not law
Ongoing disregard for her high-risk medical status during a pandemic
And she makes it clear:
She is not declining a meeting.
She is simply declining a charade.
📞 III. Her Conditions Are Reasonable. The Department Is Not.
She agrees to attend a meeting, under these conditions:
It must be remote (due to her asthma and pandemic risk)
Her attorney (Lara Maroof) must be present
The meeting must be rescheduled to 4 September to allow time for written clarification of all listed concerns
This is not resistance.
It’s due process — in an island that seems to fear due process more than it fears illness.