Kelley Williams-Bolar Sentence Reduced

Tuesday was the first day of school in Canada and many areas of the United States so it was indeed fitting that Kelley Williams-Bolar had her felony convictions for sending her kids to a safer and better performing school district reduced to misdemeanors.  

The Akron, OH mother was in the news back in January for being convicted and sent to jail for nine days for wanting to send her children to the suburban Copley-Fairlawn district in which her father lived and using her father's address to do so.

Ohio Governor John Kasich (R) overrode a September 2 Ohio Parole Board decision in which they unanimously and callously voted to recommend the governor not parole her for falsifying documents so her daughters could attend school in the better ranked suburban district instead of the Akron one.

She was working as a teaching assistant in the Akron district and studying at the University of Akron to become a special needs teacher, and the felonies would derail her chances to get her teaching certificate.

The unfairness of the sentence galvanized The Tom Joyner Morning Show, Change.org  and Color of
Change.org to mount a petition drive that garnered over 180,000 signatures seeking to secure a pardon for Ms. Williams-Bolar..  When the word of the negative parole board hearing got out, mobilized TJMS listeners and supporters around the country flooded the offices of Governor Kasich with calls..

Gov. Kasich overruled the Ohio Pardons Board and said in a statement:  :When I first heard about this situation, it seemed to me the penalty was excessive for the offense," Kasich said "In addition, the penalty could exclude her from certain economic opportunities for the rest of her life. So today, I've reduced those felony convictions to what I think are more appropriate, first-degree misdemeanors. No one should interpret this as a pass - it's a second chance."

“Right now Kelley is ecstatic,” said David Singleton, a lawyer with the Ohio Justice Institute who represented Williams-Bolar.

“Now that this is not hanging over her head, she can resume her studies at the University of Akron and continue working toward becoming a teacher,” Singleton told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

Williams-Bolar also called the TJMS this morning along with her attorney to thank the listeners of the show for their support of her.  

Justice finally prevailed for Ms Williams-Bolar.   But the imbalance of funding between urban and suburban school districts in many states, the disparity in education between districts, and the diffence in education policy between Democrats who support public schools and Republicans who don't will continue to be a contentious issue into the future.

DISD Passes Trans Protections!

The Dallas Independent School District is the second largest school district in the Lone Star State and last night became the third in the state of Texas to protect trans students and employees from discrimination and harassment based on gender identity and expression.

There were a total of six policies on the consent agenda that needed to have the gender identity and expression language added at last night's Board of Trustees meeting in order to accomplish that.

According to a FB report from Rafael McDonnell who attended last night's DISD meeting, four of the policies in the consent agenda passed on 9-0 votes. The student nondiscrimination policy passed 8-0 with one abstention, and the teacher contract one passed 6-3.

The NO or abstention votes had nothing to do with the addition of gender identity and expression language to those policies according to McDonnell, but other issues the NO voting DISD trustees felt were problematic.


This a huge win for the civil rights of trans Texans.  At any rate Dallas transpeeps, time to thank your DISD boardmembers who did vote to protect your human rights and reward them with your votes in their next election cycles.

Now that HISD, DISD and FWISD have these trans protection policies in place, what will the rest of the over 1000 school districts in Texas do?   

Austin, San Antonio where you at?   El Paso?  Suburban Houston, Dallas and San Antonio districts?  The Valley?  Corpus Christi?  Lubbock?    

As always, will keep y'all posted.

DISD Poised To Add Trans Protections

The Dallas Independent School District Board of Trustees will meet starting at 5:30 PM CDT tonight at its Ross Ave headquarters to consider amendments to six separate DISD policies that will have the effect of protecting trans students and employees from discrimination and harassment.

The Dallas Independent School District is the second largest in the Lone Star State, and the amendments are on the consent agenda for tonight's meeting.  

The proposed policy changes were discussed two weeks ago in a recent DISD meeting attended by Resource Center Dallas' Rafael McDonnell. 

"I think this is an incredibly positive step for DISD,” he said in a Dallas Voice interview. “We’d love to see other districts follow in the footsteps of Fort Worth ISD, Houston ISD and DISD.”

If passed DISD would become the third district in the state after the Houston ISD and neighboring Fort Worth ISD to ban discrimination and harassment based on gender identity and expression.

If you wish to be there Dallas area peeps to watch history, the DISD headquarters is at 3700 Ross Avenue.

This is one time I'll be rooting for the folks in Dallas and not dropping shade on them due to the ongoing  Houston-Dallas rivalry.  I hope this goes through without drama.