I remember being bussed to school for part of my educational experience. I am so glad because I can tell you first hand, it did make a difference. I imagine though that I was one of those ghetto kids that saw something in side myself that wanted a better life despite being in a dysfunctional environment. I know that people are very protective of their school districts and where their tax dollars go but come on....some of these kids needed to be divided up and sent out of their immediate environments to feel as if they have a chance in life.  I am thinking about the inner city schools near me...some of them are overwrought with troubled kids. Teachers dont have it in them for whatever reasons to take the time...and kids are not getting what they need at home. We have a serious deliemma in our educational system (and at home) and honestly if I were in her shoes I probably would have given my relative some form of joint custody as not to break any laws...but with everything else being equal...I can understand her desperation. What would you do? If you want to support her...please follow the link below and sign the petition. I think probation and some future payment plan for the tuition should be plenty punishment. She has no prior criminal hx.   

Gov. John Kasich: Pardon Kelley Williams-Bolar -- she shouldn't go to jail for protecting her kids

Targeting: The OH State Senate, The OH State House, Rob Nichols (Communications, Gov. Kasich), see more...The OH State Senate, The OH State House, Rob Nichols (Communications, Gov. Kasich), and Gov. John Kasich (OH) Started by: C. Lord

"An Ohio mother of two was sentenced to 10 days in jail and placed on three years probation after sending her kids to a school district in which they did not live. Kelley Williams-Bolar was sentenced by Judge Patricia Cosgrove on Tuesday and will begin serving her sentence immediately. The jury deliberated for seven hours and the courtroom was packed as the sentence was handed down. She was convicted on two counts of tampering with court records after registering her two girls as living with Williams Bolar's father when they actually lived with her. The family lived in the housing projects in Akron, Ohio, and the father’s address was in nearby Copley Township. Additionally, Williams-Bolar’s father, Edward L. Williams, was charged with a fourth-degree felony of grand theft, in which he and his daughter are charged with defrauding the school system for two years of educational services for their girls. The court determined that sending their children to the wrong school was worth $30,500 in tuition. - Dr. Boyce Watkins                    

As punishment for doing everything in her power to keep her children safe, Ms. Williams-Bolar, a single mother with no previous criminal record, has been made a felon by Ohio judge Patricia Cosgrove. In addition to jail time, a large fine and probation, Ms. Williams-Bolar's felony conviction has also robbed her of her future.

"'Because of the felony conviction, you will not be allowed to get your teaching degree under Ohio law as it stands today. The court's taking into consideration that is also a punishment that you will have to serve.'' - Judge Patricia Cosgrove

Although Ms. Williams-Bolar had nearly completed her education to become a teacher, under Ohio law felons are not permitted to teach. She has been robbed of the opportunity to elevate her life and the lives of her family through her own hard work. She has essentially handed 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? 

Ms. Williams-Bolar's attorneys are currently preparing for an appeal. Please sign this petition to let Gov. Kasich know that you do not feel that Kelley Williams-Bolar's punishment appropriately fits her crime, and that you both support and demand a full pardon.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/US/ohio-mom-jailed-sending-kids-school -district/story?id=12763654
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Kelley Williams-Bolar wanted to give her children a better life by sending them to school in the nearby majority-White school district where her father lives — and she went to jail for it. Now, as a convicted felon, helping her children will be even harder — she had been studying to become a teacher, but that dream may have ended as well.

Real justice requires that the punishment fit the crime; by any measure, this is cruelly unjust.

Please join us calling on Governor Kasich to take a public stand and do everything he can to right this injustice (including making sure that Williams-Bolar has the opportunity to become a teacher in Ohio). And please ask your friends and family to add their voices as well — it takes just a moment:

http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/ohioschools

Kelley Williams-Bolar is a single mother of two daughters, and she is a teacher’s aide in Akron city schools who has been studying to become a teacher. According to Williams-Bolar, after their home in a housing project was burglarized, she decided to protect her daughters’ safety by sending them to school in neighboring Copley Township, where her father lives.¹

Williams-Bolar claims that she maintained a part-time residence at her father’s home, but the school district didn’t see it that way. Neither did County Prosecutor Sherri Walsh, who charged Williams-Bolar with grand theft and falsifying records — a third-degree felony. The judge presiding over the case recognized the harshness of the felony charge and encouraged Prosecutor Walsh to offer a plea bargain for a lighter charge — but Walsh flatly refused.²

Williams-Bolar was convicted on the felony charge, and sentenced to 5 years in prison. The judge suspended all but 10 days of the jail time, instead ordering 2 years of probation and 80 hours of community service. She’s out of jail now, but the repercussions could last a lifetime: unless the felony is eliminated from her record, Williams-Bolar may be unable to earn her teaching certificate under Ohio law. Williams-Bolar is only a few classes away from earning her teaching certificate.³

Any parent could understand why Kelley Williams-Bolar did what she did to try to give her children access to opportunity. It’s tragic that families around America must make choices like this every day in order to ensure their kids are safe and well-educated. And it’s tragic that this family’s opportunity to succeed stands to be limited because a single mom chose to put her kids first.

With just a moment of your time, you can make clear to Governor John Kasich that you expect him to lead in ensuring real justice that’s proportional to the facts of the case. By speaking out, you’re not just standing with Williams-Bolar — you’re standing with every parent who doesn’t have access to great schools, and who must make difficult choices.

Please join our call for justice for Kelley Williams-Bolar. And when you do, please ask your friends and family to do the same.

http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/ohioschools

Thanks and Peace,

-- James, Gabriel, William, Dani, Natasha and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
   January 28th, 2011

Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU -- your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don't share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way. You can contribute here:

https://secure.colorofchange.org/contribute/

References:

1. "Ohio Mom Kelley Williams-Bolar Jailed for Sending Kids to Better School District," ABC News, 1-26-2011
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/703?akid=1876.679562.TAijJJ& t=7

2. "Kelley Williams-Bolar leaves jail but public outcry escalates," The Beacon Journal, 1-26-2011
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/704?akid=1876.679562.TAijJJ& t=9

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An Open Letter to Kelley Williams-Bolar | My Rosa Parks, My Harriet Tubman (Personal essay)

Kalimah Priforce Fri, 28 Jan at 8:06am

Harriett Tubman, Civil War freedom fighter

Dear Ms. Williams-Bolar,

Zip codes have replaced “separate but equal" within our American education system and you chose to do something about it.  You chose to “underground railroad" your children to a better education and towards a better future.  You are my hero.  You are my Rosa Parks. You are my Harriet Tubman.

My name is Kalimah Priforce and I am a social entrepreneur who works to match the dreams of our tomorrow’s leaders – our kids, with every career possibility, using today’s professionals and the internet.  When my 18 year old brother was killed in 2000 right behind our old elementary school, I decided to dedicate my life towards transforming children's lives through education so that others would be deterred from getting swept up in the violence that gripped his life.

When I first learned about your story, like many people, it was through a tweet followed by a post on my Facebook.  I assumed it was another tale about a middle class parent attempting to get their children enrolled into some exclusive kindergarten program.  It wasn’t until I read a few blogs that detailed the social injustices inherent in your case that I decided I wanted to stand up for you and your two girls.

Fifty years after Brown v. Board of education, our schools remain separate and unequal.  Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall predicted in his 1991 dissent (Board of Education of Oklahoma City v. Dowell)  against the abandonment of dismantling school segregation policies so that we don’t become an America that fails to live up to Dr. King’s  dream of a more just and integrated nation.

View Slideshow Download this gallery (ZIP, undefined KB Ten years since then, school districts have been redrawn and property taxes now determine if a child goes to a school with adequate resources for college-bound achievement or are “baby-sat" behind four walls that serve only to keep our streets safer during the day but don't train their minds to succeed.  You determined that your children deserved better than the options they were sentenced to by their school district.  You chose to break the law and I along with many others stand with you to affirm that you broke a broken system and they are punishing you for it.

I grew up in a group home in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York less than a mile from ground zero of the 1968 Ocean Hill-Brownsville school wars that pitted a teachers union against parents and the local community.  Ultimately, the parents lost that battle, but the message it sent to parents of poor kids was clear – that we are not to exercise any self-determination when it comes to the condition of our schools, and that our home addresses would mean that those classrooms which are nearest to our homes remain the furthest from our hearts.

For kids without parents, we were expected to be undereducated and academically under-stimulated.  We wished we had someone like you fighting for us, because that is what a good parents does – fights for the future of their kids.  When my father resurfaced into my life at 14, I was living in Miami where they have school policies very much like Akron, Ohio and all over our country.  If there was anything that I most admired in the brief time I stayed with him was when he arranged for my home address to be substituted so that I could attend a better school than the one that was closest to our home.  He broke the law, and if he could do it all over again, he would.  He came to this country as a Haitian man in hopes that his kids would be given the right to a good education.

He wasn’t the only one who broke the law.  Millions of parents all over the country are underground railroading their children into better schools and winning their children’s future as President Obama stated so eloquently in his 2011 State of the Union address.  You are joined by millions, and just like Rosa Parks, the difference between you and those parents who used substituted address to admit their children into the Copley-Fairlawn District is that you chose to fight the system.  They took it very personally.

I watched the video as Judge Patricia Cosgrove stated that because of your felony conviction that you will not be allowed to get your teaching degree that you were only 12 credits shy from, under Ohio law.  Your trial was a witch hunt and legally setting you ablaze for other parents to see was their intention.  To hire private investigators to track and follow your interactions with your children as you made sure they got from school to home safely is appalling.  This isn’t about tax dollars, and this isn’t about money.  At some point they determined that your girls didn’t belong in their schools and rather than meeting with you to determine a way for your children to stay with the same teachers and classmates they become accustomed to, they hunted you down and threw you into prison.

Ms. Williams-Bolar, I hope you never apologize to them.  Never apologize for doing right by your kids even if it means breaking our increasingly apparent “separate but unequal" laws.  Separate is unequal!  That was what that 1954 landmark case determined and it made a lot of people in this country upset, but we wouldn’t be the innovative country that we are today if we didn’t have policies in place that celebrated and strengthened diversity across race, creed, culture – and now so more than ever before, class.

Will the NAACP come to your aid as they did for Rosa Parks?  Will First Lady Michelle Obama support your stance as I feel in my chest that former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt would?  Will the leaders and activists of our day dust off those old civil rights books and prepare for the greatest education-based Supreme Court case on education since Brown v. Board?

Like Rosa Parks, you are a symbol of what is wrong with our education system, and you can be a symbol for what is right about our American spirit when we witness grave injustice at the hands of laws that punish the weak and defend the strong.  If we courageously gather in strength and numbers across all our differences, Black, White, rich, poor, parent and child, and stand behind our principles  then we will remind the world that what makes America great isn’t its technological or financial advances but that we still remain "number one" throughout the annals of recorded time as a nation of social innovation where every child’s dream is lifted so that his or her future can soar.

You are my hero…and I’m not the only one.

Sincerely,

Kalimah Priforce

This made me think of the saying "The more things change the more they remain the same.".  SMH  

Followed the link and passed it on.