Just ask any mother: what would you do to provide a better education for your children?
Kelley Williams-Bolar, a single mother who's going to college and working as a teaching assistant (and who has no prior criminal record) while living in a housing project, claimed that her two daughters live part time with their father who lives in a better school district.
The school disagreed, and hired a private investigator to film her dropping off her children. They wanted to charge her $30,000 and when she refused, the case went to court and the jury convicted her. The judge sentenced her to 5 years in prison, but suspended all but 10 days, with community service and probation.
Williams-Bolar's father, Edward Williams, told CNN affiliate WJW-TV that the children did live with him, so he believed the family was within the law.
He said his daughter's Akron neighborhood – where she lives in government-subsidized housing – isn't safe.
"She had 12 police reports that her house had been broken in, so what am I supposed to do? Just leave them there?" Williams said to WJW-TV. "I mean, I can protect them better if they was with me."
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.
The school, obviously, disagreed:
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. [...]
"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."
Oh, and to make matters a bit muddier, Williams-Bolar is black and the school district is predominantly white.
Link - Thanks Tiffany!
"Fraud is fraud" or do you think that it's a heavy-handed punishment for someone trying to make better lives for their children?
Also, keep in mind that the way Ohio runs its school districts was found to be unconstitutional but they haven't gotten around to fixing it yet.
This is heavy handed justice, and to make things worse they've used bloated and illogical numbers to back up their douchbaggery. Epic fail, Akron. epic. fail.
Come on people!
Hi, I hear the going rate for detective work in your city is through the f*cking roof! I would like to personally extend an offer of my own investigatory services to you. Obviously, no matter how nominal the crime, you seem to have the funds to overpay for any kind of "investigation." Citing the recent case of Miss Williams-Bolar, I see that you paid someone $6,000 for what appears to be extremely simple clerical work. By extremely simple I mean you could have imported a $6,000 chimpanzee from Whereeverthefuckchimpanzeesarefrom, Africa and gotten very similar results.
So remember, day or night, 24/7, call me, text me, or pay researchers to invent a new way of communicating with holograms like in Star Wars, whatever completely over exaggerated method you can think of to spend a shitload of money to do a simple task, do that and I promise to do any ridiculous, mind-numbingly illogical job you have for me... as long as you're willing to pay me a million times what the task is worth.
Thanks,
Noah
Plain and simple: did she commit fraud? Isn't every con artist/ thief / criminal trying to make a better life for him/herself and his/her children? That's not really a justification for fraud.
The children's father lived in the district, and paid taxes.
But hey, you're right. Clearly the punishment was too light. I say we publicly vivisect her! That will be just payment for a slight against the almighty state!
A simple citation or court order would have sufficed, I think. There's no need for this Biblical response.
In the Australian Public school system as far as I'm aware you can choose any of the public schools. The only cost difference is in the transport - $10 a year to get the local school bus, or parents could drive you as far as an hour away - if they so wished to. And like someone else pointed out - if the father is paying taxes in that district - what difference does it make if the kids are predominantly with their mother or father?
I don't blame her for what she did, but she was caught and now has to pay the price.
Bottom line is our society may be getting domestic partner benefits but kids certainly aren't getting anything from having multiple houses and parents, etc.. I'm guessing they aren't divorced or the separation would have spelled out where the kids lived legally. Even then, a sharing agreement can be vague on residency.
Stupid to be a felony though. 'Tough on crime' indeed...
And that whole "muddier" comment is just race baiting. And, it just got Neatorama removed from my favorites.
This is outrageous and ridiculous. Who exactly was harmed in this process? Were children prevented from attending school because hers were there? Doubtful. Now the poor woman who was just trying to lift her family out of poverty has a FELONY record. This is just another example of what's wrong with our country.
http://www.change.org/petitions/view/gov_kasich_pardon_ms_kelley_williams-bolars_unfair_sentencing_for_fraud_and_theft?alert_id=dGhFwLEpFr_ebeWXcYMTa&me=aa
....she could, if they were with me.
Other than that, it's a tough situation.
Let her in - sure, she's a hard working well meaning mother trying to be a public teacher. How about a dozen of her neighbors - after all they're good mothers too. How about 100 children from poor neighborhoods with dedicated mothers - 1000?
My tax dollars go to my schools for MY kids. If you like our school, buy a house in it's district. It's that simple. Don't like your school - move.
I already pay enough for your kids education via Federal tax - I can't afford to do it with property tax too.
I plan on avoiding this type of problem completely by homeschooling my kids or sending them to private school (should a decent one open or re-open around here).
Slap on the wrist. Your app is denied. Move, or prove your case at an appellate board meeting, then you can have the kids over.
That being said, the fact that Williams-Bolar committed fraud is true, and she is serving her punishment for that. Whether or not her actions are justified, the fact that she felt compelled to deceive a good school to accept her children isn't acceptable.
The current public education system restricts children to the district and the school they are designated, and there are times when neither children nor parents are able to anything about it. Some schools do a very poor job at what they should be doing, and that will have a great effect on the children's later prospects.
When parents and children are stuck with a school like that, they have very few options. They can buy their way into a better school district if they have the money. Otherwise, they are confined.
If the parents aren't wealthy enough to move into another district, that doesn't mean that their children somehow deserve a less comprehensive education. Some people may not appreciate the fact that their taxes go to educating other, poorer children, but the wealth gap really shouldn't control what opportunities we allow people to have. Preventing these children from getting a decent education will only widen that wealth gap and cripple our country's everything.
The problem presented isn't so much in the problems caused by the mother, but by the problems that caused her actions. I can sympathize.
"Oh hey, kids? Yeah, the school hates you. Like, a lot. It's a bit weird, how much they hate you. I'm kind of freaked out."
Oh, well, maybe you americans have too few criminals or something, so you have the need to make them out of perfectly normal responsible people...
The level of empathy for other people displayed by some posters here is overwhelming. Not!
I feel so bad for her and her children now. All she wanted to do was give her children a chance in a better school.
I also pay property taxes, yet do not have children, would you mind refunding the part of my money that subsidized your children's education?
I also only drive on a handful of the roads in my city, and visit public pools a few times per season- can I get a refund for the unused portion of those public goods?
I get that a parent will do what they need to do... but the grandfather shouldn't be opening his mouth saying things he's not backing up. He should not be saying 'they are better off with me' if ... they aren't actually WITH him.
If the house has been broken into a dozen times, do you want your children living in that house? When there's a house near by that is safer, in a better neighborhood, with a better school? Why isn't the father taking care of his daughter and her children? I can't see what's going on from all the smoke due to back pedaling.
:/
Alex, I hope you'll keep us posted about what ultimately happens...
As others have mentioned, there doesn't seem to be any doubt that she did something wrong. But- the punishment doesn't at all fit the crime- I mean a felony(?!)- whoa. And the amount of $$ spent by the school to prove it- if I had kids in that district, I'd be more upset about that than about her kids being there.
"My tax dollars go to my schools for MY kids."
Heyyy...and MY tax dollars go to YOUR schools for YOUR kids too! I pay several hundred dollars a year in school taxes EVERY year and I DON'T HAVE KIDS! I hope your kids are enjoying their nice school in their nice district where you moved to your nice house so your kids don't have to rub elbows with any 'hood rats from the projects. Just keep in mind that there are plenty of other childless people out there just like me who are forced to help pay for little Jimmy and Susie to have the laptop your Snob Hill school district hands out to every kid and who gives a crap about the kids of a single mother over in the HUD Alley part of town? They aren't from YOUR neighborhood so why should they have their hand in YOUR pocket? Never mind that their mother has been working hard for years to better herself and provide for her kids. BY HERSELF. Never mind that she wasn't a crackhead or a welfare queen pumping out a kid every year so the government handouts keep coming and she won't have to go to the botheration of working for the rest of her life.
If thinking this is shameful and disgusting makes me a "bleeding heart" then so be it. At least I *HAVE* a heart, you self-righteous pig bastard.
I don't feel I should have much of a say on how schools are run in America, given I don't live there, but I can't help but think the citizens would be better served if more people put their effort into fixing the REASONS people would lie about their district.
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2011/jan/31/kus-search-new-athletic-director-cost-just-more-62/