My kids attend a very good school district in a small city adjoining a much bigger city which has pretty crappy schools. Parents from the big city try to sneak their kids into the district with some frequency. When we enrolled our kids, we had to sign an affidavit with VERY PROMINENT warnings that if we didn’t actually and continuously live at the address we were providing, we could be prosecuted for perjury, our kids would be immediately expelled, and we would be billed - and, if necessary, sued - for the cost of educating our kids. The district, it is rumored, employs a private detective part-time to investigate reports of false enrollments. False enrollment is a form of theft, albeit out of the best of motives, and it’s a very big deal here.
To the OP: If the school board pays no mind to your letters, consider attending a school board meeting, copies of your letter in hand, to ask them why in public session. You may also bring the matter to the attention of your state board of education or the state attorney general, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they just shrug and say it’s a local matter.
This happens frequently in our school district. The vast majority of the time the child is simply transferred. It seems to me that the only time the parents are pursued for damages is when they won’t leave quietly. I can’t prove it but it seems punitive.
I’m of 2 minds on this; on the one hand if it were a couple kids I’d say let it slide but from the figures the school district publishes it appears to be much more than a small problem. I believe the last time they went through the enrolment they found about 100 kids and they go through the enrollment at least once a year.
Does this have a significant impact on my kid? I really can’t say.
Weirdly enough, it’s become a bit of an issue here in DC. Supposedly parents from PG County, Maryland are trying to sneak there kids into some of the better DC charters, and perhaps some of the better elementary schools. DC does provide free preschool for all kids over the age of three and subsidized afterschool care for those kids, which is something not available in the Maryland schools in the neighboring jurisdiction. Since space in those charters is pretty limited, and you only get in via lottery, those spaces should go to residents of the school district who pay their taxes in that district.
Here in Minnesota, we have by law open enrollment – parents can enroll their kids in any school district that they want. And much of the funding for schools comes from the State, and goes with the student, so school districts welcome outside students enrolling at their schools.
This results in school districts actively recruiting for students to attend their schools; emphasizing their quality education, high test scores, extent of extracurricular activities, diverse student body, etc. And parents carefully researching the schools, attending open houses, etc. to decide where to send their kids.
Overall, this competition to attract students seems to result in improved educational quality, and seems better than the situation the OP describes, and his indignation at it.
Could be convenience. Could be that the local district has fine schools , but the other district has different or specialized schools. There have even been cases where NYC teachers, who can certainly afford to live in a good school district , live outside NYC and lie about their residence to enroll a child in a NYC school.
Vigilante justice. I won’t give any specific advice, but I’ll give you a hint: it involves Silly String and poison gas land mines from the former Soviet Union’s black market arms cache.
If the kids compete in pretty much any form of varsity extracurricular activities, including cheerleading, dance team, and/or band, in theory, you could drop a dime to one of the school’s opponents about a possibly ineligible participant…
It is illegal and immoral to lie about where you live so that your children may attend the school of your choice.
It teaches them that lying for what you want is okay.
But people act insane for their children.
I’m not much smarter or dumber than most folks on this board, and their kids are not more intelligent or more deserving than those who honestly go to the school their parents don’t like.
There is a day care center in the building where I work. People park in No Parking Zones so that their kids don’t have to walk or be carried an extra twelve feet, endangering other people’s blind and deaf children. But they are THEIR CHILDREN!
People who pay significantly more property tax because they chose to live in an area with a good school system deserve to have those funds sever their own children as opposed to anyone who decides to consciously break the law and lie about eligibility requirements.
Maybe not 911 but I’m sure as hell calling the school board.
I second this. Letters to the school board are useless. School board meetings are open to the public, just show up at one and voice your concerns directly; that’s a lot harder to ignore than a letter.
Yeah, I’ll note Elendil’s Heir is from Ohio which IMO has a horrific school system. Now, I’m not saying Ohio has bad schools–in fact there are many school districts in Ohio that are amazing and probably some of the best districts in the country (several that surround Columbus are extremely nice.) No, what I mean is that at the State level I think States like Ohio really do a lot to destroy realistic chances of “equality of opportunity.”
In Ohio, every little town can have its own school district if it wants. So what happens is big cities like Columbus have huge school districts with tons of students. However, a lot of the people who live inside the actual Columbus tax district are poor, so Columbus city schools are quite simply undesired. Then you have richer people congregate to small towns that all have their own school districts–cities like Dublin, Upper Arlington, Bexley, Hilliard etc. These towns have ridiculously high municipal income tax and property tax millages, but they have extremely good schools. The general wealth of these communities by itself makes property more expensive, then the desirability of the local school systems creates increased demand for housing in those districts. What you get is ever-increasing property tax rates that are simply unaffordable to anyone but the wealthy.
So yeah, it’s great if you’re upper middle class and can afford to live on those cities, it really, really sucks if you don’t.
I’m not nearly as familiar with Minnesota’s system, but states that I think “get it right” tend to do exactly what you’re talking about. What I’ve seen in States where I think it is done “correctly” is you have the primary school administrative unit at the county level. Each county has its own school board, with some level of funding provided by county taxes. However, a lot of the funding also comes from the State. Most importantly, the State will have “equalization” statutes in place. What this means is each year the State looks at all the county school districts, their spending per pupil and average teacher pay. They get the average, and any school district that is 10% or more below the average in spending per pupil or teacher pay, receives lots more State money than the schools that are at average or higher than average.
Now, in systems like this you can still have local municipal levies that go towards specific projects, like High School construction etc. So in States like this I’m familiar with, yeah, even within counties the richer cities will have the nicest schools because those municipalities can take it upon themselves to approve special levies for construction of better schools. But then like you say, they have an open enrollment policy…the ones I’m familiar with don’t allow any enrollment in the State, but do allow open enrollment anywhere in the county. What you end up having is 1-2 really high quality High Schools in the county, typically in the richer neighborhoods, and the parents who really care about their kids education take the necessary arrangements to get them to school every morning (since busing may not be available for kids who aren’t in that school’s area by default.) But even though there is still some inequality, the fact that little cities can’t all develop their own school districts, and the State forces some degree of county-to-county equality really levels the playing field in my opinion. Especially in that it gives high achieving poor kids who live in bad neighborhoods a good option to get out of that environment and have a much better shot at a good education, enrollment in college and etc.
When you decide to live at the poverty line because you give all of your money to the poor to fight economic injustice then you can get on your high horse.
Life is not fair in every circumstance and it should not be.
If your area does not have open enrollment and you are sure the student wasn’t somehow accepted as an out of district student (divorced parents and one parent lives in and pays taxes in your district), then I would start with the principal. Then the school board. Then attend school board meetings and ask to be heard. Don’t disrupt graduation. You will ruin it for everyone and be viewed as a nutcase, and there is always the chance that you are wrong.
