Earlier this year, an Akron Ohio Mom (Kelly William-Bolar) was ordered to jail for allegedly “falsifying documents” that permitted her daughters to attend a school in the next district over. Not fined, jailed! She used her father’s address for residency purposes because she did not want her daughters attending a presumably dangerous school which, according to a CNN report, had “only met 4 of the 26 standards of the Ohio Department of Education Report Card.” She wanted her daughters to receive a quality education in a safe environment, and knew that would not happen in the school located closest to her home.
There are so many thing wrong with this decision, I don’t know where to begin.
1. According to the school’s superintendent, Brain Poe, “If you’re paying taxes on a home here… those dollars need to stay home with our students.” What if you are not paying taxes on a home, what if you live in an apartment in his district? Does that mean apartment dwellers are ineligible to attend his schools? Does it mean that if you do not have school-age children you do not have to pay the portion fo the property taxes attributable to the schools in your district? Seriously Poe?
2. The Mom was alleged to have “defrauded” the school district out of $30,000. If the schools are equal throughout the state, why would this one cost $30,000 more than the one that her daughters were to attend by law? This doesn’t make any sense.
3. Why are school districts who claim to be so desperate for money hiring private investigators to torment private citizens? Is there no right of privacy left in the United States? This school, a governmental agency, was spying on a private citizen. Didn’t the Judge in this case even remember that this Mom has a Constitutional right to privacy and certainly not to be spied on by the government. Doesn’t the School District have liability here for a warrantless search and privacy violations?
4. The Supreme Court of Ohio has declared the way public schools there are financed is unconstitutional FOUR times. Does this case not prove that schools in poor neighborhoods are NOT equal to those in wealthier districts? How is this equal treatment under the law?
5. Finally, I can’t believe how obtuse this Judge was. First the Honorable Patricia Cosgrove indicates that SHE must follow the law as written and send this woman to jail for violating the law and then sends a letter to the State Department of Education indicating that William-Bolar’s teaching certificate should not be pulled. In other words, don’t uphold the law like I did. She actually has the nerve to tell another branch of government to break the law because of extenuating circumstances. If Cosgrove had been thinking when she handed down the sentence, she would have followed the intent of the law and taking into consideration the equities of the case.
Did she not see the irony of sending that letter? Worse yet, did she forget the Constitutional rights of this Mom?
In the eyes of the law 
It is absolutely ludicrous that she should go to jail for something like this. While the circumstances were not quite the same, I know many people from my high school/school district that did similar things to transfer to the school of their choice. I went to Westwood High School, which is a very good school, its in the top 100 high schools in the nation, so many students from surrounding schools and even districts would do whatever they could to transfer in. But at the same time the school was EXTREMELY competitive. So much so that last year (2 years after I left) they stopped announcing and distributing exact class ranks to students. Prior to that students would do anything they could to fight for the top 10% so they could go to their school of choice. This fight encouraged lots of cheating and many of the truly bright students were put behind those with less morality. This spurred quite a few students that I knew to transfer to other schools in the district with less competitive ranks. The average student (barely top 50%) from Westwood was easily able to break the top quarter and usually without much more effort able to break into the top 10% at a schools a few miles away like McNeil. And people transferred quite a bit around my school district. There were many ways around address and I know some people used the parents address closest to the school they wanted to attend even if they didnt live there most of the time. This woman should not have to go to jail for something like this. Really, she has pointed out a major flaw in the local education system, if one school is that much better and more costly than another.
What I don’t understand is, how some students can lie about their living situations to participate on different high school sports teams, yet this woman and her children are being punished severely for attempting to get a better education. I can recall many people I went to high school with and others from surrounding areas who lied to go to a high school with a state ranked football, baseball, or even softball team. Why are, or were, these people not being investigated and this poor woman is.
Every mother wants the best for her children. Why is the education of a child causing so much scrutiny in the press? And who is anyone to say that if put in Ms. William-Bolar’s position that they would not do the same exact thing for the well-being of their child.
I feel like William-Bolar was used as nothing but an example. Her punishment was rediculous the fact that she had to pay 30,000 back to the school district. If she could do that then she would not be having to lie to get her children in that school district. How is that good punishment when she has two children she needs to support? Also if she had been a white woman from the suberbs and not a single mother from the projects then she could afford to get the lawyers she needed to get the correct ruling. The judge was unfair and bias in this ruling. I know a lot of students that so call “cheat” the school system and go out of district for sports. If her children had been involved in sports this might not be such a big issue. The real question is why did the school feel like they had to send private investigators to catch Bolar in the act, what was it that really made them question if her kids belonged in that school?
I agree with John on how ridiculous of a decision it was to send this woman to jail for that. I as well know many people who use there aunt or uncles addresses in order to attend a different public school that they are not zoned too. My cousin is a perfect example. After leaving middle school, my cousin was very sad to hear that he would not be able to go to high school with all of his friends he grew up with because they were all zoned to one school in Houston, Bellaire High School, and he was the only one zoned to Memorial High School, a much more presitgious higher ranked public high school in a nicer part of town. My aunt used my uncles address in order for my cousin to attend Bellaire because she was not going to make her son go somewhere where he would be miserable. All was fine until the school caught them for lying about there address. Did my aunt go to jail? Heck no. The punishment was that my cousin was expelled from Bellaire and he was left having to enroll at Memorial High School. No consequences to my aunt. Any other penalties would be ridiculous. Poe needs to get off his high horse. Who is Brian Poe anyways…
To your first point, perhaps Brain Poe would argue that Apartment renters pay taxes via proxy, after all the cost of the apartment to the Landlord would be included in the rent paid by the tenant sending his or her children to school. This is of course not how the system works, otherwise the argument could be made that once the kids graduate your property taxes should go down, and with that the entire public education funding system.
I agree with the rest of the posts on here. I believe William-Bolar is being made an example of by Brian Poe and the Akron administration. I mean how is it possible that they would specifically hire a private investigator ONLY to spy and follow her. I wonder what the taxpayers of Akron, Ohio thought about that. I agree with Professor Houser’s comment in class over this issue. This has to be a race issue, because I mean how many other people do this….I bet there are dozens of other people in Akron, Ohio doing the same thing. Yet none of them are being thrown in jail or fined $30,000. In the end I guess this is just an issue of Poe and the Akron administration not believing in the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education, which stated that public schools must be integrated.
This case blows my mind just about as much as the case about drawing blood did. This world seems to be becoming more and more concerning each day, mainly involving government intrusion and failure to uphold a citizens constitutional rights. Growing up I had countless friends who’s parents put a relative or friend’s address so that their children could attend a better school. It’s almost gross that this court was more concerned about ‘upholding the law’ than the children’s education and their families constitutional right to privacy. St Augustine, I believe it was, said that an unjust law is not law at all. A law that incarcerates a women for having the best interest in her children’s education should not be tolerated. I would even go as far to say that this judge is ignorant in making her decision. It seems to me that she did not fully comprehend the concept of the spirit of the law as apposed to the letter of the law.