Mother convicted of felony for fibbing in order to put her kids in a better public school

Hools Verne

Come on people, look at it from their point of view: it costs real money to protect the minds of these delicate white snow flakes from the tar of unmentionables. Come on people, stop talking wringing your hands over your property taxes (they sure do keep the community white, don’t they) and call this this what it fucking is.

allen

Heartbreaking. If the punishment fit the crime she’d be offered a teaching job in that district contingent on her finishing her degree and getting licensed.

Anonymous

I think the problem was that even when confronted with the facts, she refused to send her kids to the school in her district. It says in the article that many people do this and most are resolved without any further ado. I live in Kent and actually send my kid to a school in Akron with open enrollment-so it’s not like there are no good schools in Akron.
There is no way this should be a felony, though. No one was hurt, why punish her and her kids for the rest of their lives?

Anonymous

Please keep in mind she still maintains her children spent equal time at her house and her father’s house, who she cares for due to his poor health. It’s not like they were enrolled from a PO box or something.

Also keep in mind the prosecution refused repeated attempts to plea bargain this down to a misdemeanor because they wanted to make an example of her. If she had not had a sympathetic judge she would be doing FIVE YEARS right now.

archanoid

I should’ve said this earlier: Stay classy, Ohio.

LikesTurtles

This happened all the time in the tiny farming town I grew up in Alabama in the 70s. The school I went to was all black except for me and one other white kid even though the town was pretty equally split between the two races. It turned out that when integration came, the parents of white kids simply used a relative’s address in the county seat so their kids wouldn’t have to attend school with black kids. Interesting thing is that both schools were part of the same county school system but when my family eventually moved to the “city” and I enrolled in the mostly white school in the county seat, there was a huge difference in the quality of facilities and instruction.

I’m sure all the white parents would argue that they were just trying to do what was best for their kids but in reality they were just turning their back on a school that could have been as good quality if the county treated it that same as the county seat school. It amazing the hoops our society will jump through to carve out little niches beyond which we don’t care what happens.

SanFrustration

While commons sense would indicate that a felony might be over the top, where do you draw the legal/ethical/moral line of actions done with the intent to benefit one’s children above others?

What about cutting in line at an amusement park?
What about misrepresenting income to gain additional financial aid for college?
What about illegally crossing the border into the U.S.?
What about robbing a bank to pay for school supplies?

It is a slippery slope, but politics should not be mixed with norms, rules and laws within a civilized society. You can try to fix the system, but don’t condone or justify illegal or unethical behavior simply because it is intended for someone other than the perpetrator.

Anonymous

Slippery slopes are what bureaucrats slide down when they absolutely fail to use any reason or discretion. We have judges precisely so someone can discriminate between robbing a bank and cutting in line.
anansi133

“norms, rules and laws within a civilized society.”

You still seem to be missing the point. What is civilized about a system that forces parents to do this in the first place?
- SanFrustration
  
  If by missing the point, you’re implying somebody should try to fix the system, I fairly certain I addressed that notion.
A.Lwin

1) Which is more important? Amusement park or education
2) What price do you put on someone who wants an education?
3) America WAS founded by immigrants, and historically speaking, it was founded by descendants of colonists who illegally came to the Americas and drove away or killed the native residents.
4) Desperate times will always call for desperate measures.

Jenonymous

Late to the party but here is my 2c:

Hell will freeze over before state authorities go after the 8,000 White Yuppie parents in Brooklyn who pull this shit to manipulate the educational system as they please.

Want a free tutor/kid not 100% Ivy material? Doctor shop until you find SOMEONE who will write your kid a diagnosis with a hard-to-define learning disability.

Want your kid to go to the “good” school a few blocks away? Falsify your address with the help of a crooked house of worship, rent a “home office” somewhere, etc–New York Magazine has tidbits like this constantly as White parents in Park Slope et al try to beat shifting district lines.

The only difference is that they don’t get arrested.

Anonymous

I was lucky enough to live in a state that paid all schools from a central fund. They didn’t care where you went. The schools got a check based on the number of enrolled kids, so they didn’t care (as long as they had physical space). You did become responsible for your own transportation, so it actually saved the state and schools a little money.

Local funding creates these sort of tragedies. It’s not fair to have to go to a crappy school, but it’s also not fair to make someone else pay for your kids. You might be tempted to say “Hey, let her go.” But that only exacerbates the problem. The system sucks and needs to be fixed.

If you decide it’s ok to let people send their kids to a district paid for by someone else, you’ll still have the original crappy school and now overload the new one. The situation is unchanged, maybe worse. Or you can decide to fix the problem of funding so that good schools can absorb more students.

So I’m all for sending this woman to prison if it gets people to wake up and fix the problem.

Rainer

Hmmm, township is 87% white, this did not start as a tax concern. It takes one paranoid racist parent to make a call and one power hungry administrator to twist the dagger. Instead of taking her to court, spend the time and money on improving a crumbling education system.

Jenonymous

And Zhiva,

Yes, school attendance in most of the US is based on residence, with the exception of private schools where you pay your own way.

Anonymous

Tons of students lied about their residency to get into my High School in NYC, where you can either get in via a special program, or automatically if you live in the “zone” for that school. I didn’t live in the zone, I got in through one of the programs, but everyone knew there were lots of kids with fake addresses in their records.

What the hell is wrong with these people, sending this woman to prison for 5 years for just trying to get a better life for her child? It’s disgusting and heart-wrenching. I hope someone overturns this verdict quickly, and then she sues for malicious prosecution.

Kosmoid

I would bet that if you totaled all the funds associated with the greed and corruption on Wall St., it would be enough to provide every kid in the US with a decent education including college, and would do more for the future on this country than any popular cable pundit could ever imagine.

Wait, need to increase troops in Afghanistan. Add that, too.

Anonymous

http://www.ohio.com/news/break_news/114658564.html

Anonymous

what else can you expect from unistatia. the nation that puts more of its citizens in prison than any other.

bklynchris

I am going through something similar, having a son with special needs. This mother has given so much to the educational community by working with special needs students and this is how they repay her?

You know sometimes…shit, now I am crying. Please give us something happy. Like maybe a dancing baby or disease curing kitties?

Anonymous

Too bad the kids don’t play football. The school would have paid her to transfer them and given them a fake address to use and been happy to have the kids. Funny how athletes at schools all over the country do this, but a kid who just wants an education can’t do it too. If she were white would they have done this? Or is Ohio sending a message? Maybe she should SUE because her kids are being discriminated against in HER school district. Do you not deserve an education because you’re poor?

Anonymous

Jesus, the ohio.com site is seething with racism and hate, just below the shit-colored veneer of “she broke the law”. They’re hating so hard on the judge, who’s ruling was much more moral for not using the full force of the law on a single mother.

What she did was illegal? Yes. And other people (read: wasps) do it all the time. Was it immoral or unethical? Fuck no, unless you think trying to give your children better opportunities in life is wrong. If you do, you will burn in whatever hell you believe in.

CastanhasDoPara

I’m with the this is heinous BS crowd. This is one of those damn if you do, damned if you don’t head jams that makes me wonder when the next revolution will start.

Oh, yeah, stay classy Ohio (even if you have to look like a bunch of raging racist shitbags to do it.)

Anonymous

I have a deep, abiding faith that those two young women will think of their mother, and rule the world some day.

Anonymous

This is enraging. Thankfully the sentence was lessened. I am so tired of people in public roles constantly throwing around the words “American people” and “tax payers” to further their arguments. It feels like every spokesperson is citing my support as an American tax payer, but not doing anything I actually want.

Anonymous

Awesome, now instead of just transferring them back to the original school, they’re gonna put her in prison and cost the tax payers a hell of a lot more money.

The system is f****d.

Anonymous

Really? We are punishing people for trying to give their children a better education? What has this country come to? I am sure if a white person did this it would be swept under the rug, but because she is black though, it is not okay? I thought segregation was over? Apparently it isn’t. This just isn’t right, she was trying to do something good for her children, wouldn’t we all do anything to give our children a better life?

chgoliz

This is so common in Chicago that every teacher and administrator I’ve spoken with claims 20-30% of the kids in the better rated public schools got in via deception like this.

I know quite a few households in my neighborhood who, like us, get regular mail for families which have never lived at our addresses. The local catchment area is very small due to population density, which means the grade school (K-6) boundaries are only about 4-6 blocks in any direction, and yet most of the kids are driven or bused there every day because they don’t really live in the immediate area. There are even Indiana license plates in the drop-off car line.

This is one of the reasons why I believe school vouchers wouldn’t work. The kinds of parents who have the gumption to do whatever it takes to get their kid into the best school they can are already doing it. It’s the kids who, through no fault of their own, have parents who cannot or will not help them get a decent education who need the most help…and school vouchers won’t help them.

Gilbert Wham

This is the kind of shit the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act has been put to use on in the UK as well. For serious, surveillance teams used to catch people sending their kids to a different school.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-10839104
I feel so proud of our respective nations.

Antinous / Moderator

This is the kind of shit the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act has been put to use on in the UK as well. For serious, surveillance teams used to catch people sending their kids to a different school.

On a related note, on average Â£5,595 is spent per pupil in Wales compared to Â£6,200 in England – a difference of Â£605 per pupil. Definitely not just a US problem.

Anonymous

I bet if the girls were good at basketball no one at the school would have cared. Nothing like a state championship to cover those costs.

sbarnes2

That is so sad. Her picture is sad, the story is sad, the judge’s ruling is just mean, and I am sad to live in the state that did this. WTF, OH?

Anonymous

That is so dang ol wrong… Can they really blame the lady for trying to better her kids education. I wouldn’t say that she was “stealing education” or “robbing tax-payers”. Maybe if the U.S would learn how to distribute the tax money better between schools and not put it toward all the unnecessary stuff. I think they really missed this lady life up over something that couldhave been resolved in a smaller scenario. And on top of that, she got a felony which has ruined her dreams of becoming a teacher and she lost her job. I would hate to live where she lives because they did her beyond wrong.

anansi133

The school system is all about enforcing the distinctions of social class. If you suddenly decide to stop doing it that way, then there is nothing left- you must start from scratch.

What convinced me of this, was desegregation by busing: wouldn’t it make more sense to shuttle the teachers and the money around, rather than the students? But that would mean giving up on financially structured neighborhoods as a way to tell ourselves apart.

archanoid

Hey! Ho! Way to go, Ohio!

Anonymous

Heartbreaking! Poor woman and kids! America has indeed become reeeealllly messed up!

What are we talking about??? Was reading about a police officers confession, that many times people are arrested under false charges, just to make up their number. How can such insanity be going on?

Zhiva

What? In US children can go to the specific school only if they live near it? WTF?

g0d5m15t4k3

Someone needs to ask the school system how many other times it has hired Private Investigators to find out if kids were going there that didn’t live in the district. If this is the first time or they only inquire about black students, clearly this is racism and SHE should counter-sue. If they hire PIs all the time, then its likely to be about money, not race. She owes them for the time her kids went to school there, I agree there, but nothing else.

Anyway, this doesn’t seem Felony-worthy to me. They are taking away her livelihood by charging her with a felony. Then the judge is going back on their own decision (apparently because of media coverage) and saying they will exponge her record after 6 months. So now we are just exponging FELONIES when we get called out? This smells like a publicity stunt. Stop putting this lady through the legal system. Give her a reasonable sentence up front and be done with it.

On a side note, at least her dad lived in the district and was paying taxes. Imagine how many other people just make up an address in that district and don’t think anything else about it.

CatherineCC

America! Fuck yeah!

oh2

You americans are nuts. Completely bonkers. THIS is a felony ?

Bevatron Repairman

@oh2: This — the *this* in question, being lying to a government agency with intent to defraud — is and ought to be a felony. Probably is in your fully civilized, rational country, whichever it happens to be. The problem here is that we rely on the judgment of prosecutors not to be complete douchebags and ruin people’s lives to make a name for themselves. This does not always work.
- archanoid
  
  “The problem here is that we rely on the judgment of prosecutors not to be complete douchebags and ruin people’s lives to make a name for themselves. This does not always work.”
  
  “This rarely works,” is the phrase you’re looking for.
  - Bevatron Repairman
    
    Point taken.

NuOrder72

Yikes, receiving a felony for lying about residency is pretty harsh. No doubt that charge will be either dismissed or pleaded down, but that is ridiculous!

On the other hand, I do see where the school district is peeved with this kind of behavior from parents that lie about their residency. All too often, parents (especially parents of children from inner-city schools) love to transplant their children to the suburban schools with the intention of â€œremovingâ€ them from the toxic atmosphere of the school from which they came. (Understandably so) Nonetheless, as a veteran teacher, this is done in our district on an all-too-common basis. Most of the time these kids are transferred to their new school and the parents lie about their special needs, reading or math deficiencies, or most disturbingly, their propensity for aggressive or violent behavior; which is usually discovered within a week (or two) of their transfer. Instead, these parents find it easier to make a â€œtabula rasaâ€ for their child and think with a â€œnew schoolâ€ comes a â€œnew beginningâ€ and nothing could be further from the truth. Now, more than ever, I understand the importance of good parenting and working with your kids on a daily basis with their studies.

Too many times, these parents expect miracles from the suburban schools; when in reality, much of the onus goes to the parents. They need parents that are positive about their education, their teachers, and their futures. Instead, I hear parents (all too often) talking negatively about their childâ€™s teacher, school, or both. Moreover, all that happens is that their child just brings along those same issues to the better school, his/her grades suffer, the parents dick around with the system and are never up-front or honest about their childâ€™s deficiencies, and then an entire year goes by until they are placed in the correct classes and/or given appropriate remediation (i.e., speech pathology, occupational therapy, psychiatric assistance, reading or math assistance, etcâ€¦)

Yes, I also understand that their child is also moving to a different school because he/she will receive better services and that is understandable, but I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to deal with these parents who try to cheat the system. If you are honest and up-front about EVERYTHING about your child, then perhaps you will give your child the proper tools he/she needs to be successful in life. Yes, I also know that my accounts of these situations is purely anecdotal, but Iâ€™ve seen enough of it to generalize about what will happen in most instances of a parent lying about their childâ€™s residency.

Brainspore

Yikes, receiving a felony for lying about residency is pretty harsh. No doubt that charge will be either dismissed or pleaded down, but that is ridiculous!

All due respect to your teaching experience but either you didn’t read the headline (let alone the article) or you don’t understand how the American justice system works. She’s already BEEN convicted, the charge can’t be dismissed or plead down. The judge basically asked the prosecution if they’d consider either of those options and they refused, leaving the judge no option but to enforce the law no matter how unfairly it was being applied.

Also I kind of resent what you just implied about my parents in that comment.
ocschwar

“On the other hand, I do see where the school district is peeved with this kind of behavior from parents that lie about their residency.”

Peeved enough to throw the mother in jail and therefore toss the kids into the tender mercies of the foster care system ? That’s pretty peeved.

This comment from Ohio.com summarizes the reason for this case:

â€
I live in Copley and PAY my property tax sohe kids of Copley can go to school. NOT GHETTO TRASH. I donâ€™t care if she thinks she was doing best for her kids. She stole from every person in Copley that pays taxes. I do â€¦not pay my taxes for her kids to go to school and they have no right going to school there

SHE NEEDS TO TO TO JAIL FOR A WHILE. GIVE HER THE MAX TERM!! What a crook and go back to Akron, oh wait jail!â€

From what I know of Ohio, I bet this person thinks he’s enlightened and modern becuase he’s as contemptous of the “ghetto trash” as he is of white Appalachian “trailer trash,” and deeply invested in living in a community where both are zoned out as much as possible.
- Brainspore
  
  Well clearly it’s OK for the taxpayers to shoulder the bill for trying and incarcerating this woman and her father, supporting her now caregiver-less children, and missing out on the economic benefit that would have come from a gainfully employed woman and her well-educated children. I mean, we’re not barbarians.
  - chgoliz
    
    This is exactly it.
    
    A real conservative would say “a stitch in time saves nine”. Even without considering the ethics, from a purely economic POV it’s better to pay a relatively small amount for basic food, shelter, education and health care so that every child has the opportunity to grow up to be law-abiding, hard-working, tax-paying citizens…instead of paying significantly higher costs for police, courts, and prisons.
    
    The Republicans and tea partiers in the U.S. may be many things, but they are not conservative.

Anonymous

You create a strawman argument then claim that there’s a slippery slope to total societal breakdown by not creating multiple wards of the state by sending this woman to prison for several years (with a felony which destroys her chances of [legal] employment) and forcing her child to be motherless. FALLACIOUS ARGUMENTS HO!

Chrst, wht n sshl.

If you hadn’t noticed, the prevailing political climate is to neuter schools, not to try to improve them. Conservatives have been in a War on Education since the first Bush (jr) administration. It perfectly complements the War on Crime and Drugs, by removing the most important mechanism for avoiding crime and poverty.

I digress, conservatives are waging a War on Public Education, tending toward the ever popular method of subsidizing businesses that don’t need subsidies. It’s class warfare kind of thing, made all the more ironic by the fact that politicians use ignorance to whip up support.

Education is the first thing on the goddamn chopping block in almost all of the states. Why fix a problem (lack of education) when we can focus on symptom (poverty/crime)?

Anonymous

I did this myself as a teenager in the 90′s to avoid a rural Arkansas high school education. I drove myself 25 minutes in to town and used my great-Uncle’s address. I had no idea I would have been arrested if I had been caught.

Anonymous

What can we do? This is beyond unjust.

Anonymous

Its an unspoken thing but people do it all the time where I live. I’ve never heard of anyone getting a felony for it though!
If she were white, upper middle class, would she have received the same kind of punishment?

Anonymous

I graduated from high school, in California, in 1988. My hard-working, tax-paying parents falsified our address at every school I ever attended, for me, and for my two siblings. We always seemed to live one block away from the right district. But we were renters and that was the best we could do. My parents even got caught once and my sister was forced to go to a crappier, more dangerous school. But my parents weren’t charged anything, nor were they given a jail sentence. You know why? Because they’re white.

archanoid

This story makes me sick.

I live in a mostly white upper middle class suburb in Ohio. Recently, a school district near here that has some fairly similar white upper middle class suburbs in it as well as a lot of lower income and ethnic areas failed to pass levies for so long they shut down all athletics.

I know of several cases, and many others rumored, of people living in that school district claiming their children lived with family in our district and some people renting empty apartments in our district to claim residency to get their kids into better schools with good sports programs.

But almost all of the “relocaters” were the white upper middle class people and ALL of them were kids with a lot of athletic potential hoping to play their junior and/or senior years someplace where they might get some attention and gain scholarships and get into collegiate sports programs.

Nobody cared or did anything about that. I submit it’s largely because they were mostly white upper middle class interlopers. Well…also because people around here willingly bend a lot of rules for talented football players.

Too bad her kids weren’t as athletic as Lebron James. Bet they’d have let this slide if they were.

As I said…sick.

optuser

I live in Ohio, pay high property taxes (3,800 last year on a house worth 90K), and always vote for my local school tax levies when they come every 2-5 years. I’m living in the same neighborhood where I went to high school 20 years ago. I have no kids and probably never will. I feel the extremes of the argument can be divided into:

1. It’s okay to rob a bank to pay for your kid’s education.

OR

2. The OFFICE SPACE argument: it’s like the penny in the tray at the checkout…

A few years ago our school district detected a case like this. No criminal charges were filed, but the students were removed and the (single) parent was sent a bill for several thousand dollars.

School funding in Ohio is totally messed up. Our school system lost teachers (including a friend of mine) a few years ago due to budget cuts. In the meantime, I don’t like subsidizing public education for kids who don’t live in my neighborhood. It takes away resources from the kids who do live in my neighborhood.

I’m not saying this person deserves jail, but rules is rules.

ocschwar

Uh. scuse me?

“School funding in Ohio is totally messed up. Our school system lost teachers (including a friend of mine) a few years ago due to budget cuts. In the meantime, I don’t like subsidizing public education for kids who don’t live in my neighborhood. It takes away resources from the kids who do live in my neighborhood. ”

So, I also have no kids (working on it tho’) and I’ve been paying property tax for 16 years now. Are you saying that if I pay to educate the kids in my area then I’m doing my duty, but if I pay to educate kids one block over from my area then I’m somehow being wronged?

I don’t see it. If the kids 100 feet over from my area don’t get educated, the consequences for me are just as bad. Un-educated 18 year old freshly minted adults are a major liability. If kids sneak into my school district, I’d rather see them taught than have my tax money pay for private detectives and prosecution. If I saw that I would blow a gasket and have many an angry word with the school board about their use of my money.

What I do see is credentialing. A diploma from a wealthy school is worth more in the college admissions game than one from a non-wealthy school, even if the education it stands for is mediocre. People see the fancy trimmings on the school buildings and make assumptions. And that is what the good citizens of Fairlawn want to keep for themselves and not for the “ghetto trash” of Akron. And somehow people talk like the residents of Fairlawn are the ones wronged.
Hools Verne

How many kids from your neighborhood do you even know on a first name basis? Do you actually give a shit about them when they aren’t a convenient way to feel like you have been robbed?
- optuser
  
  Hools: I happen to know the two kids who live across the street by their first names, and their parents’ names. One of the children is developmentally disabled. If you sneak kids into my district without paying taxes into my district (which is the way it works in Ohio) you’re taking money from the budget for his special needs. You’re also putting my friend out of work when too many kids show up for school and not enough money to pay salaries of the teachers.
  
  See my argument?

blueelm

Schools shouldn’t be sh*tty because of where they are.

End of story.

That’s your problem right there. So long as “good” schools are tied to rich people’s property taxes there never will be any good schools.

(full disclosure: my mom went through hell so I could go to a “good” school where I was bullied and very nearly committed suicide. Frankly, my personal solution is never to have children.)

Anonymous

How does the State reconcile being defrauded when the grandfather lived in the district and paid taxes? Would he have paid more tax if the kids actually lived with him?

Anonymous

Ahem. “…suspended all but ten days of the sentence.” She spent 10 days in jail, she will not be there for 5 years. Did anyone bother to read the actual article? Of course not.

doingsitups

I can see why she is charged with a crime just based on the “if everyone else did it” argument, but it is still a brutal to lock her up for 5 years.

RebNachum

Hey, that’s great! As if getting an education isn’t difficult enough…

tylersweeney

brutal. chaser please.

Anonymous

And how much did it cost taxpayers to send her to jail?

Anonymous

…so the “better” school cost taxpayers $30,000 more per kid than the school in her neighborhood? Maybe the problem is how education dollars are being distributed…

Anonymous

No, the article said “children” as in more than one. That’s where you get the $30,000 figure.
Anonymous

This right here times infinity. Some people are oblivious to how the money is spread or not spread out properly.

Anonymous

I can’t stare at that image too long because it has injustice written all over it.

Yes, she lied, but her punishment is not proportional, fair or sane.

I don’t believe we will ever live in a society where people are not discriminated against. It is the darkest and more prevalent part of human nature.

She lied because she wanted her kids to go to a better school. That is the real issue here. We should be looking at what is happening with education, and no one will do that.

But it will be ignored, with some stupid belief that paying higher taxes gives you automatic entitlement to better. Yes you might pay more, but you were lucky enough to be born into a better situation, place and family in a life which is nothing more than a lottery. Where you are now is mostly down to luck and privilege.

dagfooyo

How awful! Well hopefully the publicity on this case will show how screwed up our school system is and generate some real support for reform. If we took just one percent of our military budget and put it towards our schools…

cmuwriter

That really sucks that she got convicted, but the judge suspending the sentence to ten days really says something.

Anonymous

What’s wrong in this f…..ing country ,some times I feel were living in the ss times ,don’t forget parents stay in the ghetto pray and wait for a miracle,my heart goes to this poor lady, god bless you

calvert4096

I was starting to worry that we had actually ended segregation
*sarcasm*

g0d5m15t4k3

Her face says it all. My face would look the same. I got caught trying to provide a better education for my children and I get thrown in jail. WTF?! If I was in her jury I would NOT fault her for it.

Anonymous

I imagine shes more upset that her kids have to go back to the other school
merreborn

I got caught trying to provide a better education for my children and I get thrown in jail. WTF?!

“Trying to provide a better education for my children” is working a second job to put ‘em through private school. Lying about residency is not “providing”.

That being said “convicted and sentenced to five years in prison” is absurd. I know a few of my classmates in school were enrolled via similar “fraud”; I’m sure everyone who went to a school in a decent district knew a few similar stories. Hell, it’s so common that there was an episode of the Simpsons about it.
- Anonymous
  
  As a parent of children at a fantastic school I can tell you that the school knows of many, many rich white parents doing the same thing. The only difference being they do something like get their name on a phone or utility bill and voila, kids are in. The school actively exploits these parents because they know they are willing and able to go the extra mile for the school and hence their kids.
  
  This is racism pure and simple.
- Anonymous
  
  “”Trying to provide a better education for my children” is working a second job to put ‘em through private school. Lying about residency is not “providing”.”
  
  Actually, that’s the real problem: All discussions of inequity in public education end up being discussions of class (and race) in America. Working a second job should not be required of parents so that their kids can get a decent education. You ask the mother to give more of her life away in order to get what should already be hers: A decent public education for her children.
- Anonymous
  
  When you refuse to help people and tell them to be independent and do everything on their own, DO NOT be surprised if some of them try ‘unorthodox’ and possibly illegal solutions.
- grimc
  
  “Trying to provide a better education for my children” is working a second job to put ‘em through private school. Lying about residency is not “providing”.
  
  She’s a single mom who worked with special needs students at a public high school while going to university to get a teaching degree (which she is a few credits away from, but a felony means that she can be denied a license) But she just didn’t try hard enough, huh?
- MrJM
  
  “Trying to provide a better education for my children” is working a second job to put ‘em through private school.
  
  From the article:
  
  She is a single mother with two girls, ages 12 and 16, and is only a few credit hours short of graduating from the University of Akron with a teaching degree. She was working as a teaching assistant with special needs children at Buchtel High School. She also cared for her ailing father, who was charged with multiple felonies in the residency case. *** During the sentencing hearing, the judge noted that Williams-Bolar faced another form of punishment. ”Because of the felony conviction,” Cosgrove said, addressing Williams-Bolar directly inside the packed courtroom, ”you will not be allowed to get your teaching degree under Ohio law as it stands today.”
  
  I sincerely hope you didn’t read that before posting your comment.

Anonymous

I live in Akron…and have watched this case from the beginning. The biggest problem is that the school districts around here won’t pass a levy to either maintain funding or increase it to pay for things like busing or teachers. It’s part of the “read my lips, no new taxes” campaign you might have heard about…you demand better schools, but refuse to allow your state government to help fund the schools that really need the money. And yes, she had her kids lie (and she herself lied quite a bit) to get into a suburban, mostly white school disctrict rather than the most black, innner-city Akron SD.

Just my 2 cents worth, but it’s more about funding than what she did. She could have sent her kids to one of our free Charter Schools in Akron, and received the same education, if she was willing.

Snig

FBI agents are likely closing in on Rick Santorum for the same thing. No?

http://www.santorumexposed.com/pages/issues/issues-tax.php

EH

FBI agents are likely closing in on Rick Santorum for the same thing. No?

Unlikely, and I don’t really think this is a good thread for sarcasm.
- Snig
  
  Pointing out grotesque inequality before the law is a bad thing?

NuOrder72

Sorry, I mistook the article. Don’t get me wrong, I feel that the school district is ABSOLUTELY wrong for taking this to trial and messing up this woman’s life. I’m just adding my 2 cents as for what we, as educators, deal with on an annual basis with these characters.

Also, you won’t find anyone in my school championing the cause for more equality in the schools across our state. (Illinois) I have never understood why an inner-city school can be so underfunded; while schools like where I teach are given TOO MUCH money to educate our students. Until we stop relying on property taxes to PRIMARILY fund education, then this social-class warfare will continue to dominate the dialogue regarding equally funded education.

Anonymous

This happens all the time with kids who are good at sports who want to play at a school with a better team. I never hear of those kids’ parents getting sent to jail.

SanFrustration

Not to stray from the topic, but to what extent is it inappropriate to baselessly blame this excessive legal judgment on rich, privileged whites? This is typically deemed highly inappropriate and bigoted commentary for any other race/ethnicity, yet somehow it is acceptable to generalize and make assumptions with no basis of fact as long as whites of privilege or even hard work are the target?

This reeks of a double standard, but apparently nobody seems to care/notice. Somebody lied and broke the law, yet the insinuation is that it is still the fault of the rich white man holding everybody else down… so cliche. How about some accountability for a change rather than blaming rich whitey for every injustice that hits the headlines. Is it too much to ask to actually help find solutions rather than try to place misguided blame?

Brainspore

As many here have noted thousands of parents across the country regularly engage in similar practices without facing serious consequences. You may choose to believe it’s pure coincidence that the one parent who got a double felony on her record for doing so happens to be a poor black woman sending her kids to a predominantly white school, but I for one find it a little suspect.

That doesn’t mean there’s a formal, organized racist conspiracy involving every privileged white person in Ohio. But history has shown that in the pursuit of “accountability” some people tend to be held more accountable than others.

BookGuy

Let this serve as a warning for all those who might try to get their children a better future. Take that, parents!

On the non-snark side, I always figured this must happen all the time, although I’m guessing it doesn’t usually involve felony convictions.

Anonymous

My friend’s mom did this exact same thing to during elementary school. His mom would drive him to his grandmother’s house just in time for him to get on the school bus and pick him up there after school. Of course she was upper middle class and white so I doubt she would have been seen as defrauding taxpyers.

SamSam

Wow. In my wife’s charter school in Boston it’s an open secret that many of the kids live most of the time outside of Boston proper. But so long as there’s one relative, step-aunt, grandma-in-law or someone that they can say they live with inside the city, no one will bat an eyelid. Are you really going to ask a kid who’s commuting an hour and a half on public transportation just to get to a better school that they need to turn around and go home?

cinemajay

So this is what’s come down to? You can provide for your family or you can send them to school, pick one.

Happy rainbow chaser seconded.

magdelane

And she’s now a convicted felon on top of it. Good luck to her getting a decent job after this fracas.
Her pic just breaks my heart. The poor, poor, woman.

Anonymous

it cost the taxpayers $30K? So obviously sending her kids to the local school doesn’t cost the taxpayers as much. Proving that the public school system is screwed in that some schools are more equally funded than others?

archanoid

Maybe a little late but it took me more time than I wanted to find this:

http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/09/29/copy/realresidence.html?adsec=politics&sid=101

That’s a link to a story I remembered hearing about. It’s what happens to RICH WHITE people who try to get their kids into better schools in Ohio.

The short answer: their kids are kicked out of the school and the rich parent sues the school district.

g0d5m15t4k3

Thanks for this. I actually live in Bexley/Columbus. Its tricky because we live in the Bexley zip code but our mail is routed through a Columbus post office. My boyfriend & I don’t have kids & don’t plan to, but I can tell you from experience Bexley are DICKS when it comes to enforcing zoning.

I called the Columbus Police 6 times during Thanksgiving weekend because someone’s car alarm had been going off for 6 straight days. It was either someone who left the state for Thanksgiving or a dumped stolen car. Either didn’t matter to me – I had to work & couldn’t sleep because of the thing. But Columbus would say call Bexley and Bexley would say call Columbus. I wonder how they solve murders! In any event, it was never resolved and I am sure that person’s car went dead because it stopped after about a week then I didn’t see the car anymore.

So I suppose in defense of the white guy I would have fought tooth & nail over it as well. It seems he spent about half his time at the apartment. It seemed like a fine line. But if the school would have called me out, I would have just sent my kids to a private school anyway. Clearly that guy could afford it! A house AND an apartment in this area are not cheap no matter what zip code you have.

Bexley seems more concerned about their money than race though. If you’re from Columbus, you know all the rich white people live in Upper Arlington and all the rich Jews life in Bexley. But since Upper Arlington had racist laws on the books up til the 70s, if you were rich and ANY other race, you went to Bexley.

Anonymous

This is an outrage plain and simple.

All this selfishness has led other countries to ruin before, how much more obvious does it have to be?

Good schools for only the rich?
Health care for only the rich?
Healthy food for only the rich?
Prison for trying to better your children’s lives?

Has EVERYONE forgotten lessons from the past?!

Anonymous

They realize it’s just going to cost taxpayers even more money to keep her in jail, right?

Anonymous

Everybody involved in this disgrace, from the intransigent prosecutors to the worthless legislators and administrators that allowed the situation to arise, needs to be publicly shamed. Neither of the FAs names any of the responsible ghouls, but they do mention the Judge, Patricia Cosgrove, who appears to have been horrified at the proceedings but hamstrung by the zero-tolerance judicial environment that the Red Queens of the Ohio legislature have constructed.

shannigans

The Copley township is roughly 87% white. I’m sure this insane overreaction has nothing at all to do with insulating the precious white kids from those gang banging dark ones.

Now that she has a felony conviction which will limit her job choices, ability to get loans, and who knows what else. Good job on ruining someones life who only wanted to provide a better future for her kids Ohio.

Anonymous

So, while she’s in jail, the kids are living with their grandfather, right?

Anonymous

if they live with their grandfather, they will be living in the same school district their mother sent them to in the first place..so they will be going to the “better” school…hmmm…

sally599

Here’s the deal—you pay for public school through your taxes. Your taxes vary depending on where you live. My tax rate is literally 1/2 of that of the city next door (2 blocks away) because we have crappy schools. Unless school money comes entirely from the state and not the city it will continue to be stratified. But if it comes entirely from the state then all public schools will be garbage and parents with money will go with private schools. If you don’t believe me, check out the school systems in major cities. I know a wealthier part of Detroit actually became and entirely new city to avoid being pulled down by the rest. Everyone in Chicago is hoping their kids get into a magnet school. Minneapolis has horrible schools in the city which are amazing just outside. If you have a solution to what should be done without raising already overwhelming taxes, please mention it in the comments, I’m sure there are quite a few legislators who would like a cheat sheet to their next campaign.

travtastic

But if it comes entirely from the state then all public schools will be garbage

So is this one of those “keep the socialism out of my medicare” kind of things, or what?
Akshay

Well, there are quite some OECD countries which have superior average education than the US, especially for 15 year olds. See for instance: http://www.unicef.org/media/files/ChildPovertyReport.pdf

They usually do this by national education systems funded through taxes. Taxes are sufficiently high to pay for a decent education. Since paying tax cannot be escaped, private schools are rare. Why would you pay vast sums for a private education if public schools are equally good? (and you already paid for public education through your taxes)

Many of the countries whose schools outperform US schools are “poorer” than the USA, some significantly so. It isn’t about the money invested in education, which will be recuperated many times over. If you believe that the taxes required to pay for a better public school system are overwhelming, this either means that a) your personal taxes are too high because the better off pay too little, or b) you are quite well off, but unduly sensitive to being taxed for the benefit of your poorer compatriots, or c) unnecessarily fearful.
- sally599
  
  I’m not well off, my property taxes are half of what my mortgage payment is and my condo was in the $100,000 range. If I lived 2 blocks over or in a house rather than a condo my taxes would be equal to or greater than my mortgage payment. (typically in the $4,000 to $11,000 a year range) 2/3 of my property taxes go to schools and I am in the bad school district. So I spend $2,000 a year to educate someone else’s child. Fine, I’m willing to chip in but I don’t want to pay $7,000 a year like the neighboring district.
  - ocschwar
    
    Per pupil spending is actually higher in Akron than in the Fairlawn school district. The problem isn’t spending. It’s safety. Akron schools are preyed upon by gangs. It’s credentialing. An A grade in a non-AP class in a wealthy school counts for more than an A grade in a non-wealthy school. It’s a whole host of other things, racism not least among them. But it’s not really the money.
    - g0d5m15t4k3
      
      I can confirm this is true. My ex went to school in Akron (I emailed him this article too). He told me that all his A’s he got his freshman & sophomore at a public school immediately became just hardly passing C’s when his parents sent him to a private school for his junior and senior year. But even getting C’s at the nice school got him into a better college than they would had he graduated with a 4.0 from the crap public school.
    - sally599
      
      Oh, thanks for letting me know—-that’s an entirely different issue and very unfortunate. I’m glad she got a suspended sentence—unfortunately I still don’t know the answer to the problem unless we start busing out all the kids to somewhere safer. Again anyone with a real solution—please post.
    - ocschwar
      
      “Again anyone with a real solution—please post.”
      
      I have a very simple solution, the one most school systems already use in this country:
      
      Look the other way.
      
      The kids who come in under false pretenses are motivated enough to tolerate the commutes, unassisted. They’re usually not a problem.
    - sally599
      
      How is that a viable solution? The first lesson the kids get is that cheating is the only way to succeed. Nice. I’d rather have a solution that works within the law, is that asking for too much?
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      The first lesson the kids get is that cheating is the only way to succeed.
      
      Perhaps the truth wants to be free.
    - urbanhick
      
      When “the law” is what’s got its boot on your neck, sometimes breaking that law IS the only choice.
    - ocschwar
      
      “How is that a viable solution? The first lesson the kids get is that cheating is the only way to succeed. Nice. I’d rather have a solution that works within the law, is that asking for too much? ”
      
      Letting them attend class is less costly and less an aggravation than ferreting them out. The detectives, the publicity, never worth it. And besides, how is this cheating? What they are doing is the equivalent of mixed race people in the 1950′s “passing” for white: claiming a privilege that should not be withheld from them in the first place.
    - Hools Verne
      
      It’s only cheating when poor people do it. When affluent white people do it, it’s called entrepreneurship.
- g0d5m15t4k3
  
  Thank you :)
g0d5m15t4k3

Right. If you make all parts of the city pay in to the same money pool for schools, everyone loses. Because the average of every district is lower than the educational minimums. Then everyone flees the public school to an even more expensive private school. Then it is even more stratified.

An ex of mine went to public high school in Akron. His junior and senior year, he was sent to a private school. His A’s suddenly became barely passing C’s but he got the diploma from the nice school. Same idea as going to a community college for two years then transferring to a nice private school for your BA.

Anonymous

Five years will cost the Taxpayer much more than $30k now in addition. If she would haven been sentenced to do public services, that would have made sense. In addition, the kids won’t be able to be with their mother, unless for the visiting times. That, my friends, is a completely fucked up decision. Strictly to the law maybe, but fucked up to anyone with a brain.

Anonymous

Is anybody asking the question why these two schools perform so differently. Can we get beyond teacher’s unions are bad or white kids are smarter. Just why are bad schools bad & good schools are good ?

Funding helps, also smaller class size, having those kids who are doing badly get extra attention. there are so many variable that need to be looked at

urbanhick

I wonder how much more than $30K the court case cost. “Local officials” = idiots, on ALL counts.

TheAntipodean

Read the comments at the original ohio.com site….

http://www.ohio.com/news/top_stories/114346689.html?displayComments=y

O.M.G.

AGC

… and another OMG for the animated gifs on the website.

gwailo_joe

This. . .is pathetic. A law was broken and punishment meted out. So the system works, right?

Lady Justice weeps behind her blindfold. . .

jonathanpeterson

Sounds like a DA looking to make a name for himself and a judge that did all she could to limit the damage (not only reducing sentence to 10 days, but also promising to expunge the record after 6 months).

I live in an exceptionally good school district in Atlanta and know that a fair number of people are doing the same thing. As long as public schools have significant quality differences between wealthy and poor districts under the radar district hopping is bound to happen.

FWIW – we have a number of latino students who live in very overpriced, crappy apartments (compared to similar a couple miles away in a different school district), but whose parents are willing to play by the rules to have their kids in a great school. Those kids are tremendously motivated and high performing thanks to their parents’ sacrifices.

millrick

“…a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity â€“ it is a pre-requisite.”
Barack Obama

perhaps Obama could give Williams-Bolar a presidential pardon so that she could achieve her own goal of becoming a teacher?

(Obama reads BB, doesn’t he?)

millrick

just read that Williams-Bolar will likely have her record expunged in six months by the same judge who convicted her.

wouldn’t an “absolute discharge” have been appropriate in this case?

Ernunnos

Where’s the sympathy for the kids who were displaced by her children? What about the parents who obtain a better education for their kids by working, paying taxes, paying attention to school board elections, etc.? It’s not about what you want, it’s about how you get it. Fraud is fraud.

Anonymous

“What about the parents who obtain a better education for their kids by working, paying taxes, paying attention to school board elections, etc.? It’s not about what you want, it’s about how you get it.”

A) I like how you assume Ms. Williams-Bolar and her peers didn’t do any of those things. Please clarify the basis of your assumptions (this oughta be good).

B) All education in the US is supposed to be equally awesome. If the district that’s 87% white has better schools than the neighboring district that’s not so white, then the system is failing those not-so-white students. This woman is simply trying to get around some unfairness.

As for “displacing” the other students – fascinating to learn that a good education is a zero-sum game.
MrJM

Fraud is fraud.

Thanks for contributing, Ms. Rand.
Niklas

Who were displaced? Link please.
billy_ran_away

Fraud is fraud.

What fraud? The grandfather lived in the school’s district and paid taxes, why can’t he use the services he pays for?
- Anonymous
  
  The grandfather is not the legal guardian of the children, therefore his residency in the district does not entitle the children to attend that school.

mgfarrelly

Looks like the DA is the 2011 front-runner for the “Inspector Javert Award for Social Justice”

Reading the whole story, it seems the Judge all but begged the DA to reduce the charges to misdemeanors, which they refused. Adding to the sad, this woman is studying to become a teacher, which a felony conviction would bar her from becoming. The judge, who comes off as an actual human being, will clear her record in six month.

I need a drink.

Anonymous

Likely this has less to do with race and more to do with a lack of adequate representation. Having a good lawyer might have gone a long way towards shielding her from such an obviously contrived charge by an over-zealous DA. Just a guess, either this mother had a court appointed attorney or equally none at all.

Put another way, let’s let this system we created do what it was designed to do. Just remember, when it’s your turn to go through our US judicial system you’ll probably be spared the same fate -just bring cash :O)

The Irreverend

I know a bunch of people who went to my high school through similar fraud. They stayed from elementary to graduation, and nobody cared that they maybe didn’t live at their grandparents’ place all that much.

Besides, if the grandfather lives in the better school district can’t he be allowed to benefit from the school tax?

Anonymous

JUST GREAT! This woman gets 5 years… for trying to better the lives of her children, while CASEY ANTHONY is going to walk! Her Trial just cost florida taxpayers OVER $360K. F- U Legal system!

Brainspore

This is especially chilling for me because my mother did exactly the same thing with my siblings and me. The only difference is that my folks eventually saved up enough to move to the same city where my grandparents lived so by the time I finished grade school we were no longer lying about our eligibility to go there. I KNOW that some of the faculty must have realized we weren’t legit because I recall the day we learned how to address an envelope and I had to ask a teacher how to spell my city’s name.

I don’t doubt that my mother’s decision may be part of the reason that my two sisters are now doctors, my brother is an engineer and I now teach college. If only this woman’s children could have been as lucky as us.

Scixual

When I was a sophomore in high school we lived on a farm in Albany Township, Maine. So small it doesn’t have a wikipedia page. Google maps shows a single crossroads. It’s not really a town, it’s a township, and I don’t actually know the difference.

But it wasn’t in any school district.

There were not more than a dozen families, and probably not many school-aged kids. Most went to the nearest school district, sometimes renting PO Boxes. I think one family home schooled.

I went to the other nearby district, because it was the one I had grown up in. With full knowledge of the superintendent, whom we called and pleaded with, I walked about a mile every morning to catch a bus just over the line into the next town. as far as I know, we didn’t have to pay extra, but my folks wouldn’t have told me that anyway.

Man, it was cold, and most of the winter it was dark when I left home and dark when I got back.

No real point, except it happens for a variety of reasons and in a variety of ways. Not all of them are quite what you’d expect.

dargaud

Whoah, incredible, to think that my parents could be in jail for having done the exact same thing (using the grand-parents address for me and my sister so we wouldn’t go to a shit school)… What sick fucks those lawyers are. Of course not being black makes all the difference in the world, right? BTW, my two best friends at the time, which went to said shit school ended up as a complete dope head for one and barely missed suicide for the other (with lots of permanent damage). So, who ended up paying back society for the schooling money ? The dope head or the engineer who had worked on 7 continents by age 30 ?!? Fuck them and all the best to that poor woman, breaks my heart.

KWillets

In San Francisco, the school district makes a profit (from state funding) on each non-special-ed kid that it enrolls, so for a long time there were kids from all over enrolling without much enforcement. Then this year the school district changed to a neighborhood-based enrollment system, where only kids from better neighborhoods get to choose their schools. Address checks then became necessary to enforce this segregation, but it’s still hard to consider it theft of services.

Does Ohio not have funding that moves with the child?

BookGuy

I don’t know specifically how funding can move in Ohio, but I do know that they have a pretty dysfunctional system of funding their schools. I grew up in PA, right on the border, so we got their local news stories about the levy system they use to fund schools. If the school needs money for one thing or another, basically the taxpayers get to vote on whether to fund it or not. I remember a lot of cases of extracurricular activities, building maintenance, and even plain old busing just getting gutted because the levies were voted down.

For example:

http://www.wcpo.com/dpp/news/political/elections_local/Ohio-school-levy-results

An Ohio resident can probably explain this better, but I remember my family often being mystified about the way things were done across the border.
- Cincy23
  
  I live in Ohio, and am the daughter of a school board member, and still hardly understand our school funding system…
  State funding for schools varies district to district. If you look at the CUPP Report (available at the ODE website) youâ€™ll see that state funding to can vary from $10,044 to $1,573 per student. Schools on the lower end of this scale cannot even meet state educational minimums without additional local income or property taxes voted in by the community. As a result, communities home to large companies and/or wealthy voters tend to pass more levies for higher taxes and get superior schools.
  There is a voucher program that this mother may have qualified for, but since itâ€™s intended for sending kids to private schools, thereâ€™s a good chance she still would not have been able to afford the remaining tuition.
  Check out some of the recent stories on the Little Miami School District for an example of how an unsupportive community hurt their students.

Aurophobia

It’s not defrauding the tax payers because the tax payers would still reap the intended benefit of educated kids who will be educated (and employable/taxable) adults.

If parents were the only ones paying taxes for public schools, that would be a different issue. But we all pay taxes for schools because we all benefit from the product of public schools (ie. an educated community).

anansi133

Yikes, I only now saw the picture. If she’d been white, there would have been no question of having the book thrown at her.

Clearly, her real crime is Parenting While Black.

Anonymous

Good old racism.

TheAntipodean’s link is utterly scary. Never going to America.

tangle

The kindergarten registration form for the local school has to be notarized. Is that the standard now?

waltbosz

They were actually talking about this on NPR’s Talk of the Nation a few minutes ago.

johnphantom

Poor black woman given a ridiculous sentence for something they could have just said, “take your kid home.”

My father was a rich white business owner and did basically the same thing, because the elementary school I was going to was crap. He registered me as living with his parents, and I got to go to the same elementary school he did, a good one.

He would drop me off in the morning at his parents, I’d ride my bike to school and back to my grandparents after school. I am sure people at the school knew, too.

Baldhead

So.. schools are still funded based on the income level of the surrounding area? Really? Education reform, please. There has to be a better way. like maybe a per capita funding. All schools get x per student seems pretty goddamned obvious to me.

penguinchris

Here’s one for you. In high school, I knew two Asian guys – one Chinese, one Korean. They were roommates in an apartment in the school district I went to.

Their parents? Lived in China and Korea. They didn’t have legal guardians in the US – any paperwork required from them by the school was forged. An American high school is apparently worth a lot on university applications!

Jesse in Japan

Having read “Savage Inequalities,” I just want to say that this woman is a hero and should be ranked up there with Rosa Parks for what she said. I hope that more parents in economically disadvantaged areas follow her example.

Hools Verne

Here’s the bottom line: property taxes and zoning laws are back door racism. That’s why as much as rich white people love to complain about them, they still move to areas with high property taxes: they keep the community white. And the beauty of it is that you can get away with talking about things like neighborhood cops systematically harassing people of color, or highly segregated schools, or gentrification in general as issues of “property rights” and “economic concerns” because now we’re far too civilized and color blind to see that the specter of Jim Crow still looms large over America.

Jack

This is basically the sad version of the premise of â€œA Tree Grows in Brooklyn.â€

Alsoâ€”FWIWâ€”by parents sent me to the â€œwrongâ€ elementary school which was just across the street from me since they heard it was better. Wonâ€™t go into the details, but after a teacher was quite abusive to me and other kids, my dad complained and I was sent to the correct zoned school for me. And while that was technically the â€œworseâ€ school, the place was better for me.

And my parents never was fined, locked up or jailed. It was a fairly common practice in NYC to fib zoning and nobody took it too seriously.

In this case, itâ€™s hard to not see racism in punishing a parent like this. Nice work Ohio! Youâ€™re the best!

oddboyout

This makes me sick.

Anonymous

While this certainly does highlight the gross inequalities in our educational system, and a five year felony conviction is WAY over the top for this sort of non-violent theft of services case…. This IS fraud. The fact that it is fairly common and the beneficiaries of this fraud were children doesn’t change that.

Mother convicted of felony for fibbing in order to put her kids in a better public school

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