Mom jailed for enrolling kids in wrong (majority white) school district

[apples and oranges]

An Ohio mother is in jail after being convicted of tampering with records to enroll her children in a better school district.

Kelley Williams-Bolar, 40, of Akron, illegally registered her two daughters at her father's address in suburban Copley Township to get them into the Copley-Fairlawn school district rather than the urban Akron district, a jury decided.

The Akron City school district met only four of 26 standards on the latest Ohio Department of Education Report Card and had a 76% graduation rate. Copley-Fairlawn City Schools met 26 of 26 standards and had a 97.5% graduation rate.

Williams-Bolar, a single mother, works as a teacher's aide at a high school in Akron and is just 12 credits away from earning a teaching degree at the University of Akron, according to the Beacon Journal.

Her felony conviction will bar her from being licensed to teach in Ohio.

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/26/mom-jailed-for-enrolling-kids-in-wrong-school-district/?hpt=Sbin

This story is actually pretty outrageous. Jail AND a felony for trying to do right by her children? Unbelievable!

[ananda]

1. This is so wrong on so many levels!

nt

[movonne]

2. Welcome to the new America...fuck the people...

[dugaresa]

3. this happens all the time and yet i have never seen someone go to jail over it

my daughter had a friend in grade school who attended our schools using her grandparents address.

[girl gone mad]

7. My son had a friend who used the grandparents' address, too.

Everyone knew about it, the family was very open. I don't recall even a sideways look from anyone.

Outrageous story.

[mzmolly]

10. Agreed. In fact, many states have open enrollment

now.

[Cronus Protagonist]

4. I happen to know quite a few people who do this

More than three. And it's not even been a secret. I will urge them to secrecy from now on.

[Obamanaut]

5. Another thread is on page one of GD with many, many responses. Link ->

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=269707&mesg_id=269707

[Kceres]

6. Wonder if this would have happened if the mom was white.

[mzmolly]

9. Nope. eom

[mzmolly]

8. "Felony conviction?!"

Copley-Fairlawn Superintendent Brian Poe told WJW-TV the case cost the district $30,000 in two years of lost tuition and $6,000 it spent on the investigation.

He denied that Williams-Bolar was singled out because she is black and the Copley-Fairlawn district is 75% white.

The district almost always resolves residency cases without involving the courts, he told WJW-TV, but couldn't work out a resolution with Williams-Bolar.

"The way I look at it is, the bottom line, you need to follow the law," he said. "If you choose to step outside of the law, what's going to happen at that point is you are going to have to face the consequences for that."

This district spent $6000 pursuing a woman who sent her kids to a better school? This is an outrage!

Here's more about the superintendent. http://www.akron.com/akron-ohio-education-news.asp?aID=7928