Another installment of “What do you think?”
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Us Girls..Our Views 
I didn’t know what to think when I saw this story. She wanted better for her kids and that meant the rich white school she couldn’t afford so she tried to sneak them in and now she got caught. You have to know that every action has a consequence.
When I first heard this story I thought how dare they put this woman in jail for this. I did think what she did was wrong but the punishment just didn’t seem to fit the crime but now a lot of other things are coming out about how bad of a problem it is at this school. Everyone wants their kids to go there and there has to be a limit. They have a huge problem with it and just this year it happened with over 40 students and this was the only problem they had.
You have to think what if everyone did this. They offered to let her pay the difference in taxes but she couldn’t. What about all the other people who have too. What about the people who move into that district so their kids can go there and people sneak theirs in like this. I can imagine there’s a lot of anger.
There are a lot more questions now being raised but I’m not sure why she just didn’t move in with her dad for a few years. She was going to school to be a teacher and now that will most likely not happen if she’s got a felony on her record. This could have been avoided.
Well, first of all, let me say that my nephew goes to the same public school district that she didn’t think was good enough for her kids. It’s a crappy urban district, yes. It is not all-black, and the one she snuck her kids into is NOT a “rich, white” school. So that is making me a bit angry, seeing it stated that way. There are plenty of black kids who live in the community where this school is and attend the school. If you make this a race issue, then what you’re basically saying is that black people can’t help themselves, they are gonna commit crimes. Nobody would dare say that, and I don’t think anyone here would even think that. But, it’s no better to say that all this is happening because of racism.
The community where she sent her kids to school voted to spend a lot more money per household on school taxes. Everyone who lives there and owns property pays it. They even had a method to accept tuition from those who do not live there. The (not-so) “rich” school system gets a lot less money from the state because they have the means to raise money locally for the schools. (Yes, Ohio has a weird system for funding schools.) None of this has anything to do with what color this woman’s kids’ skin is. She broke the law and she knew it.
How is this different from illegal immigration? There also, you have parents just wanting their kids to have a better life. Does that make everything OK? As long as it’s for your kids, the law shouldn’t matter? What if everyone in Akron tried that??
Thing is, if you really want to do what’s right for your kids, you start by making sacrifices. Maybe that means actually moving to that community and paying a little more to live there – or paying the tuition – or finding some other educational alternative that you can afford.
If it’s OK for this woman to steal for her kids, then is it also OK for me to go and steal some fruit from a fruit vendor in her neighborhood? After all, my kids need to eat. How about if I snatch her purse as she’s walking down the street – after all, my kids need new bunk-beds. No, I have to pay for anything I want for my kids. (Even though my kids have brown skin and a single mom too!)
Another thing that nobody seems to notice is that this sets a terrible example for this woman’s children. “We want it so we take it, even if we have to cheat.” Does a quality education balance that out? I think not.
I send my kid to a private school, where I pay a hefty tuition (by local standards. By this story’s standards, it’s a pittance). I also pay taxes to a school that he doesn’t go to. But I still have to pay that money, even though it’s not spent on him. Through her line of thinking, I should either (a) just be allowed to send my kid to that private school without paying, or (b) not have to pay taxes to the local school district. Neither is going to happen.
But I still send him to the private school. Why? Because it’s the best available. So I understand her motivation. But I did it the legal way. Even if he hadn’t gone to that school, I’d have “open enrolled” him into the neighboring school, not the one that I pay for… for the same reason.
There are legal ways for her to send her kids to that school. Move into the area (one comment I read said that apartments were available for $600/month, and that the lower-end houses in the district were around $65K). Share custody of the children with her father, who lived in the district, and have them live with him. Open enroll.
But don’t break the law, and then call “foul” or “racist” when you’re caught. I’m sorry, it may be a sad situation, if it’s as bad at that other school as painted (although I’m FAR more inclined to believe SKL than all the ramped-up stories I’ve come across), but you follow the rules and figure out a way out of that situation. As I keep trying to impress upon my kid, “You’re not so special that the rules don’t apply to you.”
Yeah, that’s the other thing I was gonna say – I have a school in mind for my kids. It requires tuition. Should my kids be able to go there free, because (a) I don’t have the money or (b) my kids have brown skin and a single mom or just (c) because that’s what I want and I have the guts to steal it?
Of course there has to be consequences to your actions. These may have been a little too harsh! She should have moved, and yes, this all could have been avoided. I appreciate her will to give her kids a good education though, but do it honestly. I would have appreciated that much more.