A homeless mother in Connecticut goes back to court Wednesday for a pre-trial hearing, facing charges of larceny for enrolling her child in a school district where she did not have residence.
But 33-year-old Tanya McDowell has no residence. She is homeless, her lawyer said.
In September 2010, McDowell enrolled her five-year-old son in the Norwalk school system, using the address of the child’s babysitter. She was arrested and charged last month.
This is the second time in recent months that an African-American mother has been arrested in connection with enrolling children in an incorrect school zone.
Kelley Williams Bolar of Akron, Ohio was sentenced to 10 days in jail earlier this year after using her father’s address to enroll her two girls in a suburban school system.
Unlike Williams Bolar, in McDowell’s case, she removed her son from Brookside Elementary School when it was discovered that the two did not live in the Norwalk School District.
“This has been traumatic for the mother and the child,” said Scott X Esdaile, Connecticut state president of the NAACP.
“The child is in a different school now, but when she drops him off, he wonders if Mommy will be back,” Esdaile said. “He wonders what he has done wrong.”
The NAACP brought attorney Darnell Crosland onto the case a few weeks ago for McDowell, who previously was represented by a court-appointed attorney, Esdaile told BlackAmericaWeb.com.
McDowell was charged with first-degree larceny and conspiracy to commit first-degree larceny after police said she lied about living in a Roodner Court apartment, leased through the Norwalk Housing Authority to her friend and babysitter, Ana Marques.
It was during an eviction hearing for Marques that McDowell testified that she didn’t live in the apartment, but instead lived nearby in Bridgeport. Her son attended Brookside Elementary School, but withdrew from the school in January after the hearing, Crosland said.
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