Homeless Woman Faces 20 Years in Prison for Illegally Enrolling Son in Wrong School District

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Tanya McDowell, left, stands with Connecticut NAACP Conference President Scott X. Exdaile, right, and other supporters outside state superior court in Norwalk, Conn., today. Credit: Stephanie Reitz, Associated Press

Using someone else's address to secure a spot for a child at an ideal school is nothing new, but the case of a homeless woman charged with illegally enrolling her boy in a preferred school district is headed for court.

Tanya McDowell, 33, is due in state Superior Court in Norwalk, Conn., today on charges of larceny and conspiracy to commit larceny, where she could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison, the New York Daily News reports.

She is charged with stealing $15,686 -- the estimated value of her 6-year-old's education, according to the newspaper. McDowell reportedly told police she was living in a van and sleeping at a friend's place in Bridgeport, Conn., or at a shelter in Norwalk.

McDowell's son was enrolled at Brookside Elementary School in Norwalk from January through his mother's arrest on April 14, the Daily News reports.

According to the newspaper, McDowell used a friend's Norwalk public housing address, but the boy should have been enrolled in a Bridgeport school.

Norwalk Mayor Richard Moccia's office has received more than 100 emails supporting McDowell, the Daily News reports.

"Do we really want to be punitive for this?" McDowell supporter Gwen Samuel, founder of the Connecticut Parents Union, tells F! oxNews.c om. "We just cannot be the state that is stooping to this level."

However, Moccia tells the Daily News McDowell is no angel, having been arrested last year for possession of marijuana and having served 18 months in prison for robbery and weapons charges.

"This is not a poor, picked-upon homeless person," he tells the newspaper. "This is an ex-con, and somehow the city of Norwalk is made into the ogre in this. She has a checkered past at best."

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