Government Schools Clash with Parental Choice and Result in Jail Time for a Teacher's Aide

The article Jailed for Switching Her Daughters' School District has to be read to be believed.

Here are three brief excerpts:

(1) "Kelley Williams-Bolar, 41, a single mother from Akron, Ohio, was convicted of two felony crimes in January and jailed for nine days after she falsified documents so she could enroll her daughters — one a third grader, the other in junior high — in a neighboring, higher performing school district.

(2) "QUESTION You registered your daughters in a school district that didn’t serve your neighborhood. Why?

ANSWER My home had been broken into in 2006. I decided to enroll my kids using my dad’s address. We’re over there a whole lot. He helps raise them. He’s very involved with my children. Everything was fine — at least I thought it was — until the second year. I was very concerned about their safety. I didn’t want them at home by themselves. I was in school. I worked long hours at the university. I wasn’t comfortable with them being that independent. My children were too young. One was in junior high and the other was in third grade. They were too young. I did not have an opinion if the schools were at the level they should be or not. That’s not why I did what I did. People do it all the time. My grandparents raised me, so I didn’t think it was a problem because I didn’t give them a fake address or anything like that. Their grandfather is involved in raising them."

(3) "Q. What was it like to hear a judge tell you that you were being sent to jail?

A. I remember standing there and shaking my head. I remember them putting handcuffs on my wrists and ankles. I can’t say it was devastating because it was worse than that. I can’t describe the intensity inside of me, what was happening to me. I can’t express it to you. It was horrible. I was 40 years old and I had never been in trouble. I didn’t know what the inside of a courtroom looked like before that, aside from what I had seen on TV shows. The lowest part was my very first phone call home to my babies. They’re crying; I’m crying. And then a television station got the tape and played it on air. That was a hard pill to swallow."

What a tale. The government, the schools, the prosecutor and the criminal justice system have really outdone themselves this time.

Thanks. Bob.