Moms jailed for not taking kids to school

MUSKEGON, Mich. (WOOD) – A pair of moms whose kids are chronic no shows at schools in Muskegon County in Michigan are in jail.

While the county prosecutor’s office says the moms were given every possible chance to get their children in school, one mother behind bars says she was punished unfairly.

“There are so many more other people who do drugs and who drink and don’t even wake up to take their kids to school and that’s not me,” said Sarah Martinez speaking Friday, June 17 from the Muskegon County Jail.

Martinez’s seven-year-old daughter allegedly has about three months of unexcused absences from the Orchard View school she attends.

She is serving out an 18-day sentence, she says, because her daughter was not allowed to ride the bus after she missed it several times and then the single mom of three without a valid drivers’ license struggled to transport her child to the school.

“I’m a single mom with three daughters and I tried my absolute best to bring my kids to school and to pick them up,” Martinez said. “I’m being punished because I took my daughter out of school 15 minutes early while she was on the playground.”

In addition to Martinez, 35-year-old Elizabeth Miller is serving 10 days in the same jail after Chief Assistant Muskegon County Prosecutor Timothy Maat claimed her four children in Mona Shores’ schools and had an average of 26 unexcused absences each.

Efforts were made to reach out to Miller in jail, but she did not agree to an interview.

“No parent is ever locked up who makes an effort to get their child to school,” said Chief Assistant Muskegon County Prosecutor Timothy Maat.

Maat said there are at least a dozen attempts made by the school to address whatever issues are keeping parents from sending their elementary-age children to school.

That includes things like day care for single parents, social issues and transportation.

There are social services agencies that work with the schools and the prosecutor and all of those resources are exhausted before criminal action is taken, Maat said.

“The only two cases that resulted in incarceration were as the result of a parent who refusal to accept the help that was being offered,” Maat said.

Martinez tells a much different story.

“The school didn’t do one thing to try and help me with the transportation. They just didn’t help me at all,” said Martinez.

Maat said some 500 references were made to the prosecutor’s office from the schools this year, down from nearly 600 last year. Only a couple dozen had criminal charges lodged this year and only these two moms ended up in jail, so far.

“There is never a situation where a parent is incarcerated because they could not get their kids to school.”

But Martinez said she was told different.

“I asked them what’s the whole point of me doing this, is it to punish me or is this to get me to figure out a better way to pick up my daughter from school, transportation  – and they said ‘both,’” Martinez said.

“We’re ultimately here to help parents, we’re not here to punish parents, we want to help parents and to help keep kids in school,” Maat said.

Martinez said she has moved her child out of the school of choice she attended and will send her to the neighborhood school in walking distance which she says will end the transportation problem.

The prosecutor says the program has been a success – keeping kids in school and improving their lives and futures.