43
Mother guilty in case of falsified records
BOARDMAN
A 31-year-old township woman pleaded guilty to falsifying records to send her children to Boardman schools.
DeJeanine M. Brockman, of Centervale Avenue, pleaded Tuesday morning to the misdemeanor and was sentenced to pay the school district $671.40 in restitution.
A felony charge of tampering with records was dismissed in exchange for the plea to the misdemeanor, said assistant prosecutor Martin S. Hume.
“We were satisfied with the result. We believe she’s been held accountable and that it will be a deterrent to others,” Hume said.
Brockman spoke to The Vindicator on Tuesday afternoon about the case.
Brockman said that when she moved from Michigan last year, she researched the area and wanted to send her children to Boardman schools. She moved into a rented house on Pinehurst Avenue because the owner told her it was in the Boardman school district. However, Brockman later learned that it’s in the Youngstown school district.
“It was put the kids in private school or move into a house in Boardman. It was cheaper to move to Boardman, and I looked at a house on Erskine [Avenue],” she said.
She met with the owner and made arrangements to rent the property.
“I thought I would fill out the application and get them enrolled in school while we waited. This thing got blown out of proportion,” she said. “... This is where I messed up. I drew up a lease, a mock lease, and I put the Erskine address on it because I anticipated us getting it.”
But before Brockman and her family could move in, the owner told her that she had decided to sell the home instead of renting. Brockman looked for a new location and chose 44 Centervale Ave., which is in the school district.
She and her children officially became township residents three days after the school year started. At that time, only two of her children were attending Boardman schools. Three were visiting their father in Arizona, Brockman said.
Five of Brockman’s six children are school-age and currently attend Boardman schools.
“As soon as I got my house on Centervale, I took the lease up there instantly,” she said.
Superintendent Frank Lazzeri said the district has investigated hundreds of these types of cases, but Brockman’s was the first to be prosecuted.
“It was a matter of a few days, but still the law was broken in that falsified document. This is the first time we’ve had a case where someone has actually forged a document that we have caught. There may be other instances that slipped through,” he said.
He added that Brockman’s children were not taken out of the district during the case and will remain because they have a current township address.
Lazzeri said it was only “by accident” that police and the district became aware of the case when the Erskine homeowner reported mail addressed to Brockman was sent to an empty house.
For her part, Brockman described the investigation as bordering harassment with police showing up at her Centervale home multiple times and pulling her children out of class to ask where they lived.
She doesn’t intend to be a township resident for much longer. “I have no plans on staying in Boardman, but I taught my children not to run. They will finish out the school year,” she said.