Is Lying to Get Your Child Ahead a Crime?

In some ways, shes no different from any American momworking on a shoestring budget to make
ends meet, going back to school for her degree, doing the best for her kids. What set Kelley
Williams-Bolar apart? Doing what she saw as the best for her kids landed her a stint in jail.
Some are calling it the Rosa Parks moment for education: the single mother of two, concerned with
violence in her subsidized housing neighborhood, fabricated residency documents in order to send
her children to what she saw as a betterand safersuburban district. Her daughters attended
Copley-Fairlawn School District in Summit County, Ohio, for two years before transferring to another
district; several months and a private investigation later, Williams-Bolar was indicted upon her failure
to pay over $30,000 in back tuition and ultimately convicted on two felony counts. Williams-Bolar has
since served a 10-day jail sentence and now faces probation and community service. And more than
Williams-Bolars good name is at stake hereas a teachers assistant only twelve credits shy of her
teaching degree, her career is now jeopardized by the felony charges on her record.
The case has spurred public outrage on both sides, casting Williams-Bolar in the light of both
offender and victim. Supporters claim Williams-Bolar is unjustly being made an example, citing her
race and economic background as significant factors, but critics applaud her arrest as a necessary
crackdown on those who game the system and defraud taxpayers.
Is the Akron mom the criminal . . .

To those who saw Williams-Bolars conviction as extreme, her judge argues that tough times justify
tough measures: in an unstable economy, a forceful check on parents wrongfully enrolling their kids
out of district is needed. And to claims that the district had singled out Williams-Bolar, Copley-
Fairlawn Superintendent Brian Poe has cited over forty additional residency disputes within the
districtall of which were resolved by families establishing legal residency, paying back tuition (an
amount set not by the district, Poe points out, but by the state), or withdrawing from the school. The
difference with Williams-Bolars case, Poe asserts, is that Williams-Bolar continued to disregard
district efforts to resolve the issue. Williams-Bolars misrepresentation is made more inexcusable in
the eyes of many because of the money attached to it. To them, the victims here are the tax payers
and the two school districts involved. You are not entitled to steal just because you want a better life
for your children, summed up Akron Beacon Journalcolumnist Bob Dyer in a recent piece. Period.

. . . or the victim?

With headlines like Dont Jail MomsFix Schools, Change Laws and Ohio stomps on American
Dream of education, some view the real crime here as school funding inequalities that drove
Williams-Bolar to commit a felony in the first place. The racial and economic overtones of the case
have made it an especially hot button issue. Syracuse Universitys Dr. Boyce Watkins, in a
recent News One editorial, identified Williams-Bolars case as a microcosm of three forms of
inequality that affect all of us: [e]conomic inequality, educational inequality and inequality in the
criminal justice system. Petitions for her exoneration circle daily online. One petition on Change.org
reads in part, She has been handed what equates to a life sentence for attempting to protect her
children. In a time of overwhelming economic disadvantage for so many US citizens, are loving
single mothers like Williams-Bolar truly the enemy our court system should be making examples of
in this way?
Another look at reform

Williams-Bolar, regardless of how public sentiment casts her, is quickly becoming a new poster child
for education reform. Officials in Williams-Bolars own backyard see the case as a catalyst to much-
needed change. In a recent statement, Ward 4 Akron councilman Russel Neal Jr. said, This case
has given us an opportunity to look at the circumstances that made a member of my ward feel that
she could not send her children to a school that is right around the corner. Whatever the outcome,
the ramifications of this complex situation will be felt long after the last gavel has sounded.