Last week an aspiring teacher and mother of two middle-school aged daughters slept in a jail cell. Sharing common grounds with drug dealers, molesters, murders, and thieves, Kelley Williams-Bolar now bears the title of convicted felon for simply wanting a safer life for her children.
The 40-year-old mother and teacher aide was convicted and received a five-year sentence for altering official records. She claimed that her daughters lived with her father in a suburb of Akron, Ohio in order for them to go to a safer school than the one zoned for the housing project in which they actually lived.
After hiring an investigator, school officials in the Copley-Fairlawn district discovered the secret of a desperate mother’s attempt to make sure her children were safe.
Despite the unequivocally harsh sentence for Williams-Bolar, the judge ultimately reduced the sentence to 10 days, and on Jan. 30, after nine days served she was released with the understanding that she will be on two years probation, and serve 80 hours of community service.
After the sentencing, the distraught mother’s pastor Lorenzo Green said, “It’s just sad, when I see the media here today you would think it was a serial killer.”
Although a serial killer would likely get more than five years in prison, the length of Williams-Bolar’s sentence is the same amount as numerous significantly higher heinous crimes.
For a five-year sentence, Williams-Bolar could have sexually assaulted or kidnapped someone. She could have committed manslaughter, burglary, or even contaminated public water or food for terrorism, yet the crime she was initially sentenced for only tampering with documents for the safety of her children.
Nonetheless her actions were illegal, and she should face some sort of punishment; however, the one that she received does not reflect the nature of her crime.
Prior to the change in schools, Williams-Bolar allegedly filed twelve different reports with the Akron, Ohio police department on crimes within the area of the housing project where she and her girls lived.
After their house was broken into, she decided enough was enough and moved her daughters into the nearby Copley-Fairlawn schools, a suburban school district.
If her daughters went to a school in an area that was clearly unsafe, how could they possibly learn? Some experts have shown that in order for a student to perform to their best abilities, school safety is needed.
Too many times reports of the inequalities between inner-city schools and suburb schools come into question. Not only are they now unequal in the quality of the education, but the notion of safety has also come into play with these disparities.
Why must this obviously caring mother be the poster child for this crime? Why must she be made the example? Why must the actions of a parent to make life better for their children result in excessive punishment?
Simply put, the times have changed.
To think that a woman who’s only true crime was caring too much about her children would go this far is without a doubt a disgusting disappointment to our legal system.
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- Kelcie McCrae