A woman from Rochester (which is known for under performing schools), who sent her kids to school in a suburban district is now facing prison time.
Should she go to prison for this, or do you think that’d be too harsh?
Wait, this is illegal? Don’t the schools allow students to be bussed from other districts? We had several students in my school who were from neighboring districts (or even farther afield) who opted to go to our school. Is this not allowed in Rochester?
I mean, I can understand the charges because she falsified information and effectively sent her students to one school while paying taxes to support another, but aren’t there options available for her to do this legitimately?
I think she should be made to pay fines amounting to the cost of the education she “stole,” but I think jailtime is a little harsh in this case.
I don’t think she should have any jail time, but it seems that the prosecutor doesn’t either:
“Justice can ensure this woman can take responsibility if she’s guilty for what she did, but in my mind, that would not involve a term of incarceration,” said White.
“I know people are going to speculate that’s too much time, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s going to receive that time or any time at all,” said Dunham.
I suppose one ought to be pleased that the police and justice system in the area have nothing better to spend their money on than prosecuting this woman for a crime. It must be an unusually crime free place.
Possibly she should consider giving her mother (the children’s grandmother) a document giving her temporary guardianship over her children for the duration of the school year and excluding school holidays, then they could presumably attend the schools without fear of their mother going to jail.
I can think of nothing to punish her for.
Call me a commie, but shouldn’t we work on making it so that the quality of your government education doesn’t depend on the luck of where you were born? Where you don’t have to break the law just to give your kids the same high-quality government education that the kids up the street get?
If you want your children to go to school in a certain district, you should move to that district. Don’t lie about where you live.
Every year I get visits from school board investigators who want to know if So-and-so is really living at such-and-such an address. I just tell them the truth.
Presumably, most people who do this want their children to go to school in a district where they can’t afford to live.
Let them eat cake!
So they can’t afford to live in a district where the rents are higher because the property taxes are higher because they pay for schools that are better.
Too Bad. Life isn’t fair.
I’ve always felt that there should be a mechanism for parents who wish to send their kids to schools in other districts for whatever reason. In PA, parents can do that, but there is a cash tuition involved, which some families may not be able to afford. The new district also has to approve the transfer, which isn’t automatic.
That being said, I can understand the attraction of lying about your address to get your kids into a better school, or the “right” school. Ethically, however, I can’t get that worked up about it. I think the appropriate punishment for Ms. Hill would be to make restitution to the district for the time her kids attended school there. Period, end of discussion.
even sven, until No Child Left Behind’s retarded funding scheme is modified or repealed to remove the financial penalties for underperforming schools, and until we figure out how to make urban districts more desirable for teachers, and until we figure out other ways to deliver necessary social and health services to these kids in a way they can actually use, these districts will never be as good as their richer counterparts. Oh, and equitable property-tax revenue would be good, too.
Robin
Hey, I’m not condoning what she did, but this attitude is part of the problem. I mean jeez, what would the world come to if poor kids has access to decent educational facilities? Anarchy, I tell ya!
Their grandmother however does pay property taxes in that district, for which she receives no benefit. By this logic anyway. Should she get a refund?
That’s one of the mechanisms I think should exist for allowing kids to attend school in a different district. If the grandmother gives permission, the kids should be allowed to go.
Robin
And I suppose if you lost your job, had to move to a crappy apartment somewhere, and sent your kid to one of those metal-detector schools you’d just accept it, right? Or are you going to tell me that you are so moral and upstanding that you’d claw your way out of poverty no matter what? What if I reminded you that it’s not the kid’s choice or fault either way. My friends didn’t pick out their drug-addict parents.
I went to one of those metal-detector schools, just a few miles from a brand-new palace of a school. California has a completely fucked property tax system where schools in older, unpopular neighborhoods basically receive no funding. And I never, ever, ever want to hear someone talk about “equality of opportunity” in front of me. The rich kids of the state of California get a quality education. The poor kids get a shit education. It’s a shame to our state, and we should endeavor to fix it.
Do other states not have open enrollment? In Minnesota, all it takes is filling out an application (there is a deadline) to send your child to another district. It happens all the time. Some districts will provide transportation, and others will not, but you still have the option to send your child to another district.
In PA, parents can apply to send their kids to a different district, but it involves a tuition payment of (IIRC) $500 per academic year, and it’s not automatic; there has to be a justifiable reason for the child to attend the non-resident district. Leftover seats, if there are any, are allocated on a lottery basis, or on some other random basis. (Medical and special-ed situations are handled differently, for obvious reasons.)
There are also problems with parents lying about addresses to send their kids to school within the district. We’re fortunate enough that our address is zoned for the “best” elementary school. There are generally issues with other parents using friends’ or relatives’ addresses to send their kids to school there, instead of their “home” school in order to take advantage of full-day kindergarten and other goodies that some of the other schools don’t (or can’t) offer. This makes the attendance numbers very lopsided, and since some funding for schools is based on those numbers, the sprog’s school receives a slightly more disproportionate amount of funding that rightfully should be going to the other schools.
Robin
The problem comes when you have more students trying to get into the “good” school than you have seats at that school. While technically you may be able to fill out an application and send your child to another school, in reality there are lotteries and waiting lists in many areas. For two years running, we’ve applied at a dozen schools for a seat, and not made it into any of them, despite my son’s test scores being at the top of the district. Even those schools running on a selective academic admissions can’t accept all the children who qualify, and the kid’s lost out due to random chance. So then you’re faced with the options of sending the kid to his crappy neighborhood school, homeschooling, paying for private school or lying about your address.
I’ve chosen to send the kid to the crappy school, but it’s only out of fear for something like this happening to me, to be honest. Serving jail time might not deter *her *from doing it again, but the story of it prevents me from doing it, and I’m sure other parents. It’s the deterrent theory of law and order, and in this case, it’s working (for me, anyhow.)
Thanks for clarifying. I guess being able to open enroll easily is just a benefit of living in a rural area, where schools are bending over backwards to attract kids.
Nice. So the rich kids get to go to nice expensive public schools while the poor kids have to go to the ghetto public schools. Talk about your classism.
In our state, there is a limited “public school choice” program. We applied for, and got into this program for our son, so he attends a school in the neighboring district.
Our town school is excellent, but is so small that they can’t really deal with kids who do not fit into their particular mold.