Send your kids to the wrong school...go to jail

Parents Cross Lines To Get Kids Into Good Schools : NPR

Ohio.com - Kelley Williams-Bolar leaves jail but public outcry escalates

How Ohio’s Copley-Fairlawn School District Keeps Their Lily-White Reputation

 

Thanks for the thread.

:zx11pissed:This is disgusting. I'm not smart enough to have all of the answers, but I certainly know the difference in right and wrong. This is wrong. Regardless of a judge's recommendations, she will likely be unable to work in any meaningful or decently compensated occupation for the rest of her life. In what way will she then be able to contribute materially to society?

How is the prosecution of this woman going to help society? She was trying to work her way out of poverty, and to provide the best education available for her children. I applaud her. When the laws of the land no longer serve a beneficial purpose in society, it is time for them to be discarded.

 

I agree. This should be a civil penalty, not a criminal conviction.

 

What a shame. I hope her lawmakers review this case and if nothing else intervene in allowing better school choices for parents. If only one's tax dollars followed the child rather than the district...

 

She knew the law and broke it, she should get something.....

 

Agreed, but it's a bad law that should be changed, imho. Hopefully this case if nothing else spurs discussion toward reforms that would dissuade the need for actions like hers...

 

She did not live in the district, she lied about it. Don’t let your heart strings get pulled. If you lie on a government record and break the law you should go to jail. She should have kept working hard and completed her education and then moved to the district she wanted to attend.

No laws should be changed at all. If we did people would just drop their students at any district they wanted to. I live in one of the best district in my part of Texas. They stop hundreds of false enrollments a year. If they allowed all of the false enrollments to stay, my superintend said they would have to build more classrooms. Which would make my taxes go up. People need to look a the bigger picture here, it not just this one lady its tons of people who try to do this. Me and my wife busted our A$$ to pay our bills to live in this district you do the same!

 

I completely agree.

I do not agree. If we had a school system that wasn't churning out dumber kids year after year, then I would certainly agree with you; but we don't. Something needs to change. I do not claim to know the right answer, but I do not believe the status quo in American elementary/secondary education is acceptable. I don't agree with the methods of this lady, but I cannot blame her for wanting something better for her kids. In the end, the school districts like the one this lady was trying to escape crumble and feed the prison rather than the university. Just a sad situation all around...

 

But its all about the students.....they don't feed kids to prisons the kids go there with the bad choices they make. Guns on't kill people, people kill people. If she was trying to be a good mom she would have taught her kids not to break the law. Where do we draw the line?

 

Great point; they're making bad choices. These kids are uneducated, or undereducated and they make some terrible choices. Poor schools and absent, indifferent, and/or uneducated parents have plenty to do with kids making bad choices. If we improve the schools, we can improve the crime rate, and we open up opportunities for employment and innovation. Crime-ridden areas and poor performing schools usually coincide; take DC for example. Of course there are many variables that add to these problems, but brilliant people much smarter than I have wonderful ideas. We shouldn't ignore our growing prisons and failing schools by saying the kids are making bad choices, have terrible parents, and shaking our finger...

 

I think the prosecutor in this case needs to be thrown in jail for filing a scurrilous lawsuit.

 

She should get something, but a FELONY CONVICTION?! Seriously? I know guys accused of domestic violence that have gotten plead down to a misdemeanor. The same goes for guys could possessing narcotics. This type of thing had happened at the same school in the past, yet she is the first person to be prosecuted in any manner. Furthermore, the judge stated that the prosecutor refused to make any plea deals. Something else is going on here, and I don't know what.

 

OK, the county prosecutor released a statement, and now it makes a little more sense.
http://www.ohio.com/news/break_news/114811999.html

So, as I read it, this has happened many times before with other parents. Normally, when the school confronts the parent they agree to pull the kid out, or pay tuition, or move into the area. Either way, the parent acknowledges the problem and makes an effort to resolve the situation.

If the prosecutor's statement is correct, in this case the mother refused to take the appropriate action and remove her kid from the school, or move their, or pay tuition. If she kept trying to maintain the facade that she was a legitimate resident of the district, I can understand why the school district would get the prosecutor involved and make this a criminal matter. At this point, my guess is that the prosecutor dropped the hammer on her to make an example.

 

A felony conviction and jail is insane for this, esp. when you consider that according to her testimony, the kids were spending 1/2 the time at her father's home, who just happens to live in the Copley-Fairlawn district.

Obviously this case points out the huge inequities in the educational system, and having lived in Akron, the Akron Public Schools would be the last place I'd send my kid to school. Williams-Bolar felt that the kids were residents because of the time spent at Dad's house. The jury disagreed. OK fine, I can accept that, but to throw her in jail with a Felony? That's absurd.

Now the other question that has been tossed around some other boards, is that if her children were star athletes, would the district have looked the other way? Accusations of recruiting high school athletes in Ohio have been a way of life for a long time.

Shawn

 

I thought everyone had seen this article before making comments about the case. I see that no one looked into this before they posted their comments of support. I also read an article that talked about how the school district asked her to write a letter of apology and pay a small fee and she refused to do so.

People are trying to make this about the crappy schools and not the parents. Lets attack the big elephant in the room…race. She wanted out of primarily black district and into a white district, right? Minority achievement is not about poverty its about race. At some point people need to look at the culture and not the educators (District) as the problem. Study after study has shown even well to do blacks in nice districts still perform way below white students performance in all aspects. So it’s not about being poor, it’s about a shitty culture that thinks it’s cool to be bad. ...but I might be wrong let’s just let everyone go to the best schools. I wonder how much time parents spend volunteering at the district she did not want her kids to go to.
Oh but poor her…she was only doing what was right by her kids huh? Wrong, what she did is the problem…….

Read the whole article here...

Tampabay: In search of the causes

 

Only problem with that is that they were not spending time at the Dads. She was lying, the school had a PI check into it............