Going Overboard?

At what point do we say things have gotten out of hand? At what point should people stand up and say that things are being taken too far? When and how can "public education" - a "state free education" system charge someone with theft? Everyone pays their school taxes (even if they have no school age students, sadly), and that money goes to the education system. Now, I know there are discussions and debates on why parents should be able to choose the school their kids attend, and not be forced to attend the local one in their district if they choose not to, and I am not even going to cross into that discussion. However, I was a bit outraged when I read the story of the Akron, Ohio single mother who was jailed for stealing an education. As someone seeking a position in the education field, I thought it would be good to share this and get some additional input from the readers.

Kelley Williams-Bolar is a 41 year old single mother working as a teacher's aide in the Akron public schools, and is working to get a degree in family child development. Due to her long hours and after hours school time, rather than leave her two children home so much alone, one being a third grader, the other in junior high student, they spent a lot of time being looked after by her father. Her father lived in a different school district than the family officially lived, and since they were there so much, she enrolled them in the school of her father's district since they spent much after-school time there. This was also a concern after her home had been broken into in 2006, she wanted her kids to not be at home alone, so they spent more time with their grandfather.

During the second year of their attendance of that school, they received a letter from the school district, to the affect that they were aware that the children were not legal residents with their grandfather. The mother attended a meeting and attempted to make it right, even going so far as to get a power of attorney in her father's name to make it legal, but the school rejected it and so the case went to a judge. At the end of that school year she pulled the children out of that school, not wishing to cause further trouble, though she had not even thought that doing it to begin with was an issue.

Almost a year and a half later, she received a letter notifying her of an indictment against her. She was shocked, and her and her father went to court and stood before a judge to have it fully explained to her. She never expected to be prosecuted over this whole thing, but they were charging her with stealing an education. They handcuffed and angle chained her and took her away to spend nine days in jail.

What do you think about a situation like that, where someone is not doing something for the sake of being deceptive, or trying to break the system, but simply doing something out of convenience and under the impression that it is not wrong. Should an example be made out of someone for something like this, or is this going too far? What are your thoughts?

Jeff McCormack resides in Virginia Beach, VA. where he works as a web designer by day. In his off time he is a husband, father, mail order book store manager, and musician. Aside from being a freelance writer for this Education Jobsite blog, he also seeks to assist in career choices and information by contributing to other Nexxt blog sites.