HOW FAR ONE WILL GO FOR AN EDUCATION

An interesting story in today's St. Petersburg Times of an illegal immigrant from Guatemala who wanted an education so bad that he enrolled in a Pasco County high school and passed himself off as being 17...even though he was actually ten years older.

Jouse Oswaldo Ramierz-Mejia helped his brother run a tiling business, attending classes at J.W. Mitchell High School in New Port Richey during the day and working with the business afternoons and evenings. He had apparantly enrolled over a month earlier, only being discovered when he lost his wallet and it was turned in by another student. The transcript he used to enroll was a forgery, as was his birth certificate.

Ramierz-Mejia is now in the Pasco County Jail pending $5,000 bond for uttering a forged insturment, but his troubles are not over yet. Federal immigration authorities have begun deportation proceedings.

The truly sad fact is that...he didn't have to lie to get his education. Ramierz-Mejia could have done it legally through the school district's adult education programme which would have allowed him to eventually get a high school equivalency diploma.