Ohio Mom Jailed For Sneaking Kids Into Better School

I might be completely out of date in asking this, but I was always under the impression that she could have petitioned for a scholarship or sorts considering her circumstances. The mother would be interviewed, the children would be tested for placement, and a decision would be made based on the merit of the family.

Are these types of channels and recourse not available anymore?

As a parent who could not get her kids into the CORRECT school two blocks from her house, because of people from out of distrcit conning the system, I think a message needed to be sent.

The house we lived in, in the "good" neighborhood received mail for no less than 3 families who had never even lived in the home. People just picked addresses, forged documents and put their kids in the school. School was at capacity. I move into this home, can PROVE that these other people don't live there and that I do, actually invite the Principal to do a home inspection, and still, my children could not be enrolled because there was simply no room for them. So, I'm stuck driving my kids 8 miles across town to keep them in a school they're not supposed to go to.

Rediculous, and all because of parents like this. The truth is, she should have moved into the distrcit and done it the right way, if the education of her children was really that important. There are too many people trying to take advantage of the system and causing a detriment to OTHER children and parents.

reply to post by Holly N.R.A.


As a mother, I have to give you a thumbs up. Home schooling is very hard. I considered that with my daughter while she was in 8th grade. She had such a hard time that year with some of the girls, the principle and teachers were of no help. Thank God she has graduated now and it is not an issue anymore.

Originally posted by Jake the Dog Man

Originally posted by Aeons
Horse dung. Your crappy bureaucracy can't handle natural load levelling of the populace in an area and can't properly administrate taxation? You all live in the same basic area. If your bureaucracy is so unwieldy that load levelling and taxation in districts is THAT difficult that you consider it STEALING to just be on the wrong database, perhaps you need to fire the dummies running it.

Romans. You guys really are the Romans. And we are probably the Eutrucians, and the Gods hope that eventually your see that bad bureaucracy is going to strangle the crap out of you before your bloating corpse falls on all of us.

You have read too many stories, not enough real life experience. I begrudge nobody a better education, but I do have problems when people feel the need to lie to cross district lines. There WERE other options, she did not use them, she got caught, now she will do some time.

You honestly believe what you say? Take the time to educate yourself as to what it costs, per student, to educate a child in your school district. If you are willing to pay more out of your pocket to have people come to your district then run for office. There seem to be enough people in this thread alone that misunderstand the problem with what this woman did. You run on a ticket of being fair & open borders. See how many people are willing to allow anyone from anywhere to come to the schools that your taxes support, because they need to understand that it will make them feel good to educate 3 times as many kids that even live in their district.

Repost when you get elected.

edit on 27-1-2011 by Jake the Dog Man because: (no reason given)

Our systems are taxed and administrated on an area level, not a community level.

Therefore, my children can, did and do go to school "out of district." No extra money involved.

The "extra" money you are talking about is "funny money." It is administrative bunk, created by a populace of people who feel the need to control and micromanage down to the tinest ridiculous detail.

Seriously, you Americans TALK about keeping the government out our everyday lives, and yet you create administrative nightmares to "protect" yourselves from yourselves. You actually put up with WAYYYYYYYYY more daily intrusion into you lives, merely so that you can "control" teeny-tiny ridiculous details like this.

Nor then do you address WHY people would do this. Again, adding extra administrative controls to try and administrate away utterly normal human behaviours which are GOOD behaviours that you want to ENCOURAGE.

Dear God, stop those parents from seeking good public education NOW. Really. That's what you want to punish. That's just dumb.

Does this stuff really not occur to you? You really WANT to be the people that administrate away good progressive behaviours and effect governemental controls on everything because you can't "trust" your neighbours to do what you want them to do the way you want them to do it?

Ridiculous. Think about what you are trying to achieve. Because, your bureaucracy ABSOLUTELY does not function in a manner which is consistent with its GOALS.

adults, parents & guardians (amongst others) responsible for raising children are supposed to lead by example.

this woman was sending the wrong message to her child. she set out to deceive with purpose of self-gain. her ctions were unlawful, selfish and brought shame to her family. imagine how that child must feel now that they have to go back to the old school? children can be cruel, and the Mom will not be the one getting taunted in the hallway.

the road to hell is paved with good intentions, i've been told.

the sad truth: maybe we all would like to have brand-new luxury cars in our driveways, but if you don't come from money or earn good money you're probably going to have a common car. like most people. you can go and lie to the salesman at the Jaguar dealership but don't be surprised when the car is repossessed.

Originally posted by FPB214
I think for a crime like this, she deserves at least a decade in prison and her kids need to be given to foster care. I can't imagine the pain she has put them through by taking this action. She is a horrible mother, and should be an example of how a mother SHOULDN'T act.

How is that? A horrible mother that wanted a better education for her children doesn't deserve to be charged with a felony. There are convicted felons out on the streets that's done worse than her. I hope ACLU fights this for all they're worth.

I understand where the school is coming from. The mother lied to get her children in school there, but the school doesn't receive any tax money from the state for those children, which will cost them a lot of money. This woman is being made an example of for all those parents that are doing the same thing. She's only 12 credits from getting a teaching degree and, because she's been charged with a felony will not be able to teach in Ohio. I think this is excessive!

The main part of this problem is that schools here in the U.S. primarily get their funding from local property taxes at the district level. (I'm sure some states have their programs to help with education and such, but too much of that funding gets lost and consumed by the bureaucracy. More or less wasted and mismanaged.) So what happens is that schools in most need of funding are those with the most demand (highly populated areas) and the least ability to raise tax revenue (lower working class incomes and apartments which aren't taxed the same as houses), so the quality of service provided goes into the crapper. Considering how school boards and the teachers unions and the well-to-do communities play their games, one can only see that for the most part public education in the U.S. is a system designed to fail.

This woman's case isn't the only one. And despite her being made an example of, people who care about a kid's education but can't otherwise afford it will continue to do the same. I have neighbors that send their kid out of town, even though the relative/friend (dunno the entire story - I'm not that nosy) they drop their kid off at before the bus picks them up lives in a small rented room pretty much by themself. And I've even heard some middle school aged kids waiting in line for carry out pizza openly talking about doing a similar scheme once they're going to high-school. (The local school is a mess, so I'm not surprised if the children themselves are encouraging this type of scheming when they and their peers deal with a crap-tastic school district.) It may not be legal, but considering how broken the system is, it probably is what is considered the just and right thing to do.

The main way to fix this would be to completely abolish and get rid of district level property-tax based funding. The main problems in accomplishing it is that the rich communities would hate it (more or less complaining "How dare you equitably redistribute our funds!"), and you've still got to fix problems with management of educational funding at the state level.

Even then, tax money isn't always all of it while being the biggest part of the problem. Some districts technically do have more than enough money to get things done, but they're just way too top-heavy. Cut out the administration-bloat (staffing levels and pay-wise) and their pensions - and the all the school related things that actually deserve the tax money would be in the clear.

Our systems are taxed and administrated on an area level, not a community level.

Therefore, my children can, did and do go to school "out of district." No extra money involved.

The "extra" money you are talking about is "funny money." It is administrative bunk, created by a populace of people who feel the need to control and micromanage down to the tinest ridiculous detail.

Seriously, you Americans TALK about keeping the government out our everyday lives, and yet you create administrative nightmares to "protect" yourselves from yourselves. You actually put up with WAYYYYYYYYY more daily intrusion into you lives, merely so that you can "control" teeny-tiny ridiculous details like this.

Nor then do you address WHY people would do this. Again, adding extra administrative controls to try and administrate away utterly normal human behaviours which are GOOD behaviours that you want to ENCOURAGE.

Dear God, stop those parents from seeking good public education NOW. Really. That's what you want to punish. That's just dumb.

Does this stuff really not occur to you? You really WANT to be the people that administrate away good progressive behaviours and effect governemental controls on everything because you can't "trust" your neighbours to do what you want them to do the way you want them to do it?

Ridiculous. Think about what you are trying to achieve. Because, your bureaucracy ABSOLUTELY does not function in a manner which is consistent with its GOALS.

You have an axe to grind, but not with me. You seem to have some misconceptions of how school districts get their funds and from whom. You will need to do some studying up before you run for office.

Originally posted by Layla
As a parent who could not get her kids into the CORRECT school two blocks from her house, because of people from out of distrcit conning the system, I think a message needed to be sent.

To all those who whine about the indecencies of the system and that the mother was right, I'd like to see replies to Layla's comment. I think if people who had their kids lined up legitimately only to find out that because of the selfish actions of others who lied their way through would view things differently. I completely agree with this comment and think a strong message is needed to dissuade others. This so called mother (who appears to have some brains if she is on the teaching path) knew full well the results of the actions and yet chose to do the wrong thing and potentially impacted the lives and futures of other legit kids pursuit of education. Many comments here about the mother doing the right thing are narrow minded and self indulgent to the extreme, she has no one else to blame here but her own decisions and actions,

brill

reply to post by Onboard2



That comment was soley sarcasm lol.

If you think she was doing the right thing by fraud. Imagine if you support her doing the right thing in robbing people to feed her kids. Oh I feel sorry for the mother who killed a man for 5 bucks because she needed money to feed the kids.