Quote :

Tonya McDowell, Homeless Woman, Arrested For Sending Son To School Using Babysitter's Address



Posted: 04/18/11 03:02 PM ET

A homeless mother has been arrested for sending her child to a public school in an area where they didn't live.

Tonya McDowell is being charged with first-degree larceny for stealing $15,686 in education funds from the Norwalk, Conn. school district, the Stamford Advocate reports.

McDowell and her 6-year-old son don't have a permanent address, but split their time between a homeless shelter and a friend's apartment in Bridgeport. McDowell, however, used her son's babysitter's address to falsely register him for a Norwalk elementary school.

McDowell's arrest is a startlingly severe punishment for her crime. Most families caught sending children to schools in areas where they don't live are allowed to pull the students from the school without consequence.

The babysitter, Ana Rebecca Marques, is also being punished. She has been evicted from public housing for her role in helping McDowell get her son into the school.

The case is likely being used as an example to deter others from committing the same crime.

According to the Stamford Advocate, Mayor Richard Moccia said of the case,

"This now sends a message to other parents that may have been living in other towns and registering their kids with phony addresses."

Story continues below
Advertisement

Earlier this year, Ohio mother Kelley Williams-Bolar faced similar charges and was convicted of a felony for falsifying records to send her children to a better school.

The two cases highlight the rising trend of school officials trying to weed out students who don't live in their districts.

According to the Associated Press:

Quote :

Education officials say cases tend to surface more when budgets are tight and in areas where there are significant disparities between districts such as in academic success or local income level -- particularly in wealthier districts near urban areas. That often means the districts in question also have racial disparities.

The discussion of Williams-Bolar's case has prompted a fierce debate over educational equity and school choice.

Source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/18/tonya-mcdowell-homeless-w_n_850571.html

So it's now illegal to send kids to schools in towns where they don't live?


The law is kids HAVE to be in school, if they are not THEN the law comes in and arrests the parents, so this woman makes sure her kid IS in school and she's still breaking the law, is there an answer in this catch 22 here?

She's homeless... how the world else is she supposed to get her child in school? But I bet if she didn't have him in school she would be called a negligent parent and arrested for truancy, you can't win for losing in this damn country.

AtownPeep wrote:

She's homeless... how the world else is she supposed to get her child in school? But I bet if she didn't have him in school she would be called a negligent parent and arrested for truancy, you can't win for losing in this damn country.

Exactly, that's the law, kids are SUPPOSED to be in school, and the law doesn't care if the parents are out on the street or not, if kids aren't in school that's breaking the law. So what's she supposed to do?

I fucking hate America.

Wow wtf is wrong with people? Has the world lost all compassion for others? This woman was trying to do the best for her son and get him an education and they want to go and arrest her and send her to jail? Who is gonna take care of her son now? Ughhh this story has me upset. They would probably have sent her to jail if she wasn't sending him to school too. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. They need to overturn this case & get these people off the street. So sad

Supernova wrote:

So it's now illegal to send kids to schools in towns where they don't live?

That's been illegal as long as I can remember.

By law, she should have been using the school in the district where the homeless shelter is or where she stays with a friend. But I understand why she did things the way she did...I did the same thing years ago, but it was only for a couple of months. My son's daycare provider (a home daycare) lived in a different district. Putting him in our district's school meant finding other care for him before and after school. If he went to the school in his sitter's district, then he could ride the bus to and from school with her own children. I wanted to uproot him as little as possible, since that was the year he started Kindergarten and it was already going to be a transition. School started at the beginning of August and we moved out of state at the end of September, so I chanced it. If we were permanent residents of that area, I probably wouldn't have done it.

But prosecuting this poor woman is overkill. Isn't she facing enough challenges in life?

How can that be illegal when a lot of kids have to be bused to other towns because theirs don't have schools?

femme fatale wrote:

Wow wtf is wrong with people? Has the world lost all compassion for others? This woman was trying to do the best for her son and get him an education and they want to go and arrest her and send her to jail? Who is gonna take care of her son now? Ughhh this story has me upset. They would probably have sent her to jail if she wasn't sending him to school too. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. They need to overturn this case & get these people off the street. So sad

They absolutely would have done just that. This country gets dumber every damn day.

Supernova wrote:

How can that be illegal when a lot of kids have to be bused to other towns because theirs don't have schools?

Schools are supported largely by city taxes. If kids are bussed to another town, their hometown contributes money to those schools. If you just decide to send your kid to a random school in another town, that school is eating the cost of your child's education.

*shaking my head*

So rather than help this homeless mother who was so desperate to keep her child in school that she improvised so that he could, they arrest her for. Sometimes humanity is so hardened that it's just shameful.

What a sad state of affairs. Where I live, if you want your child to attend a school in a different district, you register in your own and hen apply to transfer and in most cases, it's approved. I'm not sure how they handle things for children who have parents who live in shelters, but I'm sure it's with far more compassion than this woman received. I don't know why they couldn't accept the shelter address or the friend's address.

The woman is homeless. It makes sense that her child was going to & from school in the district where the babysitter lives. Or lived, since she's also been punished. God forbid we have a hardened criminal like the babysitter helping a homeless family.