Poor Mom Gets Drug Testing For Sending Kid To Affluent School

Ohio governor John Kasich has reduced the charges against Kelly Williams-Bolar, of Akron, who had been jailed for using her father's address to enroll her children in a neighboring school district (See Black Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to White School).

Williams-Bolar had served 9 days in jail and risked being denied a teaching credential, for which she had been studying at the time of the conviction. Kasich reduced the convictions to two misdemeanors, saying the original penalty was excessive, in spite of a unanimous parole board ruling against leniency (from the Cleveland Plain Dealer).

Williams-Bolar’s attorney is hailing the move has a victory, suggesting that it will allow her to keep her teaching aid job and possibly clear her name in the future. Yet she must still report for probation, serve 80 hours of community service, work full-time, not take any drugs or alcohol, and pay the cost of her prosecution (from tonight’s Pacifica Evening News). The parole board’s conditions include frequent random urinalysis testing for drugs, as well as submission of DNA.

This hardly sounds like a victory for a single mother struggling to get by in a low-paying job. Teaching aid jobs provide barely enough income for a single person to survive, yet Williams-Bolar must also provide for her children, pay court costs and do community service in her spare time. Furthermore, she was convicted of “stealing” educational services, not drug or alcohol offenses. Thus, it seems particularly oppressive, paternalistic and judgmental of her parenting ability to tack on the drug and alcohol requirements.

Ultimately, though, Williams-Bolar should not have received any punishment at all. Schools receive the bulk of their funding from property taxes, yet renters and homeless people, whose children are entitled to attend public schools, do not contribute any property taxes toward the school systems. Williams-Bolar was in fact homeless at the time of the “crime,” alternately couch surfing at her father’s house and at a friend’s apartment. She was punished because of her daughter’s skin color and poverty, both of which were seen by school district officials as liabilities that might have brought down their test scores or scared affluent parents.

Growing Trouble in the Middle West

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

While Wisconsin has been getting all of the press lately, attacks on workers and their unions are escalating across the country, with resistance also growing. On Monday, 10,000 workers demonstrated at Indiana’s statehouse against a range of anti-worker bills before the legislature.

The laws would make Indiana a “right-to-work” state (AKA Right to Work for Less), which would lower wages and gut bargaining rights for many public and private sector workers, including teachers. Despite the protests and testimony by workers against the bill, the Indiana House labor committee voted 8-5 to send the bill to the full house for approval.

Current law requires non-union contractors to pay union scale wages. The new laws would ban this, creating an incentive for contractors to hire non-union labor and lower their wages in order to win low-ball bids. The laws would also prevent teachers from bargaining on anything but wages and benefits, destroying their due process rights in disciplinary matters and eliminating the right to bargain on working conditions issues like class size.

Meanwhile, Ohio’s right-wing governor, John Kasich, is leading efforts to demolish his state’s public employee unions. Under the proposed laws, salary schedules and step systems would be replaced by “merit pay” for many state workers and they would also lose the right to bargain for their health care plans and would have to pay at least 20 percent of the cost. The state would be able to terminate or renegotiate contracts in the case of “fiscal emergencies,” such as their current $8 billion deficit.

Like virtually all politicians (state and federal), Kasich has promised to balance his budget without raising taxes, even after providing the rich with numerous tax breaks. This means making everyone but the richest 10% pay for the budget crisis through pay and benefits cuts, slashing of social programs, and eviscerating workers’ ability to fight back. To achieve the latter goal, Kasich has announced that he wants to ban public employee strikes.

Possible Reprieve for Kelley Williams-Bolar

Ohio Gov. John Kasich has agreed to investigate the case of Kelley Williams-Bolar, the black Akron mother who was convicted of “stealing” educational services by enrolling her kids in a white middle class school outside of her home district.  "Our laws exist for a reason and they must be enforced, but the idea that a woman would become a convicted felon for wanting a better future for her children is something that has rightly raised a lot of concern with people, including me.”

The apparent racism and class hostility that prompted the Copley-Fairlawn school district to spend $6,000 hire private detectives just to prove that this one woman was somehow trying to cheat the school district has outraged thousands, prompting more than 80,000 to sign the Change.org petition urging Gov. Kasich to pardon Williams-Bolar. Others have pressured the governor through Facebook groups like this one and Twitter @JohnKasich demanding a pardon using the hashtag #KelleyWilliamsBolar.

Kelley Williams-Bolar's family has also set up a Paypal account to cover legal fees. You can donate by going to Paypal.com and making a payment to kelleywilliamsbolar@hotmail.com.