By Estefania Nunez-Brady
Thank God the Miami-Dade County School Board did not investigate my address. In 2003, I went to a high school where fighting was widespread. I was lucky if I wasn’t accidentally hit when a brawl broke out in the hallway.
One day, in the ladies’ room, another girl threatened to bash my head on the wall if I didn’t stop hanging out with a guy she liked. “Please don’t hit me,”I said to her. “I’ll stay out of your way.”
She laughed. I went back to class, and tried to focus.
The next day, I saw the same girl grab another student and push her into the wall. This girl fought back, but the bully grabbed her Snapple bottle, broke it on the wall, and used a piece of glass to slash the student’s face.
I was petrified. That could have been me. I went home and begged my mom to transfer me to a safer school.
My parents had only been in America for four years. Money was tight, and they didn’t know the system. So my parents did something thousands of other public-school parents feel forced to do. They lied about where we lived so I could go to a school where I would feel safe.
Now, I’m reading in the Sun Sentinel that the Broward County School Board wants to investigate parents who have used a different address to register their kids in better schools. If they’re caught lying about where they live, they may be charged with a felony.
I understand perjury is against the law, and the law should be respected. But I know the parents who lie about their address are often the ones who cannot afford to move to a more affluent neighborhood, and can least afford to pay a fine or fight a felony charge.
I also understand the families who have been zoned out of a school, because it’s overcrowded with students from other neighborhoods. That, too, is unfair.
That’s the problem. The system is unfair…
