A mom in Ohio forked over her diamond ring in lieu of tuition for her son’s summer school.
According to WKYC, Tamika Hamilton’s son needed to go to summer school. But when she found out the bill was $400, she told an official at the school board she didn’t have the money upfront. Hamilton said that’s when the superintendent told her she could let the district have something that was worth $400 to hold as collateral until she paid the tuition bill.
“In my tenure, I’ve done this a handful of times, when parents can’t pay up front. I can look myself in the mirror and know that I was trying to help this family. It was a unique situation, ” Superintendent Charles Keenan told WKYC. “We do not run a pawn shop. I did this with the best of intentions, but no good deed goes unpunished.”
Hamilton says she signed the contract, but then a school board member brought the ring back to her house. Keenan says he met with the board, and the practice has ended. It was a way to allow parents to send their children to summer school if they didn’t have the money, according to Keenan.
“I was surprised, but I wanted my son to go to summer school,” Hamilton. This all stems from a complaint filed by Hamilton with the Ohio Department of Education. She claimed the school held her son back a grade because he didn’t meet attendance standards or pass the summer classes, which she disputes.
Keenan said he believes he’s going to be “put through the wringer” for “trying to help.” If the “wringer” is a flood of snarky blog posts about how his next idea for making tuition money should be pitching the History Channel for a new reality series: Pawn Shop All Stars: Extreme Scholastic Edition, then yes! Welcome to the wringer! All jokes aside, it really sucks that someone’s educational future has to be tied to something like a $400 tuition bill. We owe the kids in this country — especially the ones who are struggling in school so much that need to take summer classes or get held back — a whole hell of a lot better than that.
Image via Shutterstock.
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