Ohio Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better Schools
Keeping in mind that it's School Choice Week, consider one mom's dilemma in trying to secure a higher-quality education for her children: Ohio mother Kelley Williams-Bolar, mugshot below, will be jailed for sending her daughters to a better school.
After her home in the "rubber capital of the world"--Akron, Ohio--was broken into, Williams-Bolar decided to lie about her residency and falsify records in order to send her daughters to a highly ranked school in the nearby Copley-Fairlawn district:
Williams-Bolar decided four years ago to send her daughters to a highly ranked school in neighboring Copley-Fairlawn School District.
But it wasn't her Akron district of residence, so her children were ineligible to attend school there, even though her father lived within the district's boundaries.
The school district accused Williams-Bolar of lying about her address, falsifying records and, when confronted, having her father file false court papers to get around the system.
Williams-Bolar said she did it to keep her children safe and that she lived part-time with her dad…..
While her children are no longer attending schools in the Copley-Fairlawn District, school officials said she was cheating because her daughters received a quality education without paying taxes to fund it.
"Those dollars need to stay home with our students," school district officials said.
Undoubtedly, Williams-Bolar committed a crime--fraud, after all, is fraud. But isn't the bigger issue here why Williams-Bolar had to go to criminal measures to ensure a quality education for her girls in the first place?
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May '10
Re: Ohio Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better Schools
The "quality education" should be in quotation marks. One of my three daughters attended Copley middle & high school (the other two went to a Catholic school by choice). While it is significantly better than the schools in the part of Akron where I suspect she lives, it is at best an average school.
My heart goes out to her. We let people in the country illegally, including those who break other laws, walk free and jail a woman for trying to do her best for her kids. Absolutely crazy.
Re: Ohio Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better Schools
Steve MacDonald: The "quality education" should be in quotation marks. One of my three daughters attended Copley middle & high school (the other two went to a Catholic school by choice). While it is significantly better than the schools in the part of Akron where I suspect she lives, it is at best an average school.
My heart goes out to her. We let people in the country illegally, including those who break other laws, walk free and jail a woman for trying to do her best for her kids. Absolutely crazy. · Jan 26 at 6:37am
Thanks for the insider information, Steve! I modified "quality" to "higher-quality" education accordingly in my post.
What's Akron like? I tried to get a sense of it by googling crime stats and other indicators, but I'm still not getting a clear picture of the city. To what other U.S. cities is it comparable?
Nov '10
Re: Ohio Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better Schools
I suspect that you won't get too many responses to this because you've left nothing else to be said.
One additional point is that the school situation in this country absolutely contributed to the whole housing market fiasco, as families strained their budgets to buy houses in better school districts.
Re: Ohio Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better Schools
One item that I'd love to hear the Rico community comment on is this: what would you do if you were Williams-Bolar, a desperate parent trying to do the right thing for your kids? Sure, she broke the law--but was she morally and ethically justified to do so?
Sep '10
Re: Ohio Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better Schools
Why didn't she just move in with her dad full time?
Aug '10
Re: Ohio Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better Schools
I have opted out of the public school system in favor of the local Catholic schools.
They stress learning, not feeling and understanding problems. They don't have a weekly booksale from Scholastic which peddles books about teen suicide to 10 yr olds. They don't make the kids watch "Supersize Me" in PE.
Sure it may cost 4-5 k a year, but all of the high schoolers go on to college. There aren't police evident at the school.
People in my town have skirted the residency redlining for years. the only drawback was that you were off the bus route, so what ? That only means your kid gets to go to school with a seatbelt on rather than not.
If they stopped all the school buses, and kids walked to and from school as in the past, what would happen except lower costs ?
We need to get rid of the NEA, the unions, and the overpaid administrators. Take a look at wage expenditures of public ( less than 50% to teachers) versus parochial (80% to teachers) in your district. The administrators have the same ivory tower syndrome .
Aug '10
Re: Ohio Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better Schools
Anybody know whether there is a defense fund setup yet ? This woman ( heck this country) needs a lawyer.
Jan '11
Re: Ohio Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better Schools
Consider the premise of the school district: namely, that she doesn't deserve to go to the better school because she's not paying for it. Doesn't that imply that more money makes schools better?
I also question the assumption that all schools would deliver the same education if they only had the same amount of funds. In other words, that the only variable in education is money. Of course, that also plays into the public education lobby's hands, because it deflects any challenge to how they offer education in the first place.
Dec '10
Re: Ohio Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better Schools
What is Akron like? Chrissie Hinde was singing aboout Akron in "I went back to Ohio"
I WENT BACK TO OHIO
BUT MY CITY WAS GONE
THERE WAS NO TRAIN STATION
THERE WAS NO DOWNTOWN
SOUTH HOWARD HAD DISAPPEARED
ALL MY FAVORITE PLACES
MY CITY HAD BEEN PULLED DOWN
REDUCED TO PARKING SPACES
The U of Akron sports arena in named the rubber bowl. This is amusing when the Trojans come to play
Re: Ohio Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better Schools
KC Mulville: Consider the premise of the school district: namely, that she doesn't deserve to go to the better school because she's not paying for it. Doesn't that imply that more money makes schools better?
I also question the assumption that all schools would deliver the same education if they only had the same amount of funds. In other words, that the only variable in education is money. Of course, that also plays into the public education lobby's hands, because it deflects any challenge to how they offer education in the first place. · Jan 26 at 7:21am
Great point, KC. Another statistic to consider: in the last four decades, spending-per-pupil at schools has quadrupled. Meanwhile, student achievement has remained roughly the same. Clearly the amount of money spent on education does not cause that education to be better.
Nov '10
Re: Ohio Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better Schools
Emily Esfahani Smith, Ed.
. . . what would you do if you were Williams-Bolar, a desperate parent trying to do the right thing for your kids? Sure, she broke the law--but was she morally and ethically justified to do so?
Well, moving in with her Dad full time sounds like a solution. Other than that, I don't know. I've been blessed to be able to afford a private school--not that it isn't a financial stretch, because it is, and I've got only one child. Lots of people I know who can't afford private schools are able to home school. As I said in my first post, many people have bought houses they couldn't really afford in an effort to get into better school districts. I have heard of other people who have done what this woman did, fudging their addresses, although I think, if nothing else, there's a major ethical problem with modeling dishonesty to your kids.
Parents usually make the best choices they can for their kids. Obviously, we need to give them better and more choices. Meanwhile, flownover is right; where do we donate?
Sep '10
Re: Ohio Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better Schools
As I said in my first post, many people have bought houses they couldn't really afford in an effort to get into better school districts.
If you want to break the teacher's union public monopoly on public education this is the winning argument (Governor Mitch Daniels are you listening?) Why should a property tax fueled arms race be necessary to get better schooling for your kids?
Re: Ohio Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better Schools
So it's okay for politicians to cheat on their residency (Rahm, Hillary) in order to get elected...and we reward them with...getting elected! But a mom wants to keep her kids from getting shot and she gets arrested.
Dec '10
Re: Ohio Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better Schools
Can anyone think of an example where a public school performs objectively better than the competing Catholic/private schools in the same region?
I remember when I was a kid, driving in the car with my father when I asked "why can't I go to school X?". To which my father replied, "because we don't live in that town." Even at a young age I felt something was off about that, so I pressed further..
"Well, my friend goes to school Y, can I go to that one?"
"No, because school Y is a private school and costs thousands of dollars a year that your mother and I can't afford at the moment"
Now, I grew up in rural north eastern Connecticut where the public schools are noticeably better than the ones found in cities--or perhaps I'm biased because my mother is a teacher at a school there--but something just feels wrong about forcing children into a specific school, regardless of how that school performs.
Edited on Jan 26, 2011 at 8:18amJun '10
Re: Ohio Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better Schools
Oh, that evil woman, deceiving an incompetent education establishment in order to (gasp) try and help her kids get something better.
I'm not a big civil disobedience guy, but this is disobedience that I applaud. More and more people should be voting with their feet on lousy education.
Jun '10
Re: Ohio Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better Schools
Jun '10
Re: Ohio Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better Schools
"Can anyone think of an example where a public school performs objectively better than the competing Catholic/private schools in the same region? "
Yes. In my town the public grammar schools are superior to the Catholics. I tried one local Catholic grammar school and it abruptly changed focus when a new principal was brought in. It became more lefty than the Bank Street School in NYC. The honors math program was scrapped because it was "elitist." The other Catholic grammar school is terrible, as well. I know because I've substituted for the school nurse from time to time. I also opted not to send my son to a Catholic High School, as we did for my daughter, because the music programs at my town public high school are outstanding.
No school is perfect. In my NJ couty we have no public magnets, so you are stuck attending where you live. NJ has 600+ districts. Our town is very careful to check registration against residency records because many pupils from surrounding towns try to attend here. It's not a fabulous school, but it is superior to any of the nearby towns, so parents try to sneak their kids in.
May '10
Re: Ohio Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better Schools
The public schools seem to have become the mirror image of the centrally planned socialist state. All direction comes from above; the recipients below have no say in the matter.
Obama's SOTU painted the teachers in the most glowing, noble terms, as if they are next to the angels. Thou shalt not speak ill of the teacher.
I have been thinking more and more that the time could be coming to quit the public schools altogether and turn children's education over to the most interested parties - the parents. But, even my libertarian side bristles at this idea as too radical.
Jun '10
Re: Ohio Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better Schools
Great point!
Nov '10
Re: Ohio Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better Schools
It seems to me that this is one issue the Republicans ought to be using to appeal to all kinds of people who are otherwise Democratic voters: we support school choice and vouchers. For what it's worth, my daughter started school in Milwaukee and attended a school that took students through the Milwaukee Parental Choice program. It was great. We loved the school and its diversity. One of the most common bumper stickers you saw in the poor neighborhoods of Milwaukee was one that said "Lift the Cap", meaning the cap on enrollment in Parental Choice.