MySchool Lottery Address Verification for Pre-K

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We’re currently in the process of moving out of a condo that is IB for JKLM. We’re doing lottery for pre-K 4. As of today, our address is IB but by the time the lottery results are posted, we’ll be in a different IB school zone. How does myschool lottery verify addresses?

If you use your current address and then you move before you enroll, you will be committing residency fraud. Whether or not anyone will catch you, I don't know

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’re currently in the process of moving out of a condo that is IB for JKLM. We’re doing lottery for pre-K 4. As of today, our address is IB but by the time the lottery results are posted, we’ll be in a different IB school zone. How does myschool lottery verify addresses?

If you use your current address and then you move before you enroll, you will be committing residency fraud. Whether or not anyone will catch you, I don't know

They likely will because they verify residency and use documents that are current. For example, if you bring in a pay stub, it has to be within 45 days of when you're submitting it. If it is too old, OSSE will reject it. If you use utility bills, they have to be within 2 months.

People can certainly LIE but there is a big difference between a person who moves mid-year and a person who moves before enrolling and uses their own address.

[Anonymous]

Enrollment starts on April 1st. You need to provide proof of address/residency as of that date.

[Anonymous]

Omg, way too many people on this thread have no idea wtf they are talking about.

OP - it is not a lie to put your current address for lottery purposes and rank your IB as your #1 choice. The issue is that if you do that and then move OOB before May, you will be screwing yourself over because if you can't provide CURRENT proof of an IB address in May, you will lose your IB preference and go to the back of the OOB line. The proof of address must be current - e.g., last paystub - you can't use documents from February/March to prove residency in May.

If you are reasonably certain that you are going to move before May, you could also put your new address and rank the new IB school in your list as your IB. No one is checking at the time of the lottery that you live there; you'd just have to prove residency by May. But you can use only one address to get IB, so you'd have to be pretty sure that the new place will work out or, once again, you will be screwed.

If the new place is near a charter or a DCPS without a boundary (e.g., Dorothy Height and Military Rd. ELC) you should rank those, as residency does not factor into preferences for those schools.

[Anonymous]

Right, this only matters if you get into your inbound. Otherwise no one will care. If you do, you will not be able to enroll if you moved out of bounds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. How it lying if today the day we submit our lottery submission we legally live and own at one address that is IB? We are in the process of hopefully buying a SFH. But some things are up in the air ATM. Are we supposed to not enter the lottery because we may or may not win a contract on a house in a different part of the city?

If it weren’t JKLM, would it even matter to folks here? If I was IB for Powell today but moving to a condo in JKLM later this summer, would the advice be the same?

None of it matters to people here but you asked a question about how address verification worked and people answered. The answer is the same regardless of whether you are currently IB for Powell or Murch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’re currently in the process of moving out of a condo that is IB for JKLM. We’re doing lottery for pre-K 4. As of today, our address is IB but by the time the lottery results are posted, we’ll be in a different IB school zone. How does myschool lottery verify addresses?

If you use your current address and then you move before you enroll, you will be committing residency fraud. Whether or not anyone will catch you, I don't know

Although if OP is still a DC resident, this type of boundary fraud is a lot lower in the hierarchy of ethical transgression than out-of-state boundary fraud, in my opinion.

OP, if you get into your IB based on your current address, would it be possible that you might just forget to change your address with the DMV (license and registration) until mid-May?

[Anonymous]

OP, everyone else in the PK class is going to live IB. What are you going to do when kids have birthday parties, the school sends mail, you talk to the parents about where you live or the kids talk about their houses, there's a class list, or it's walk to school day and your kid can't do it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, everyone else in the PK class is going to live IB. What are you going to do when kids have birthday parties, the school sends mail, you talk to the parents about where you live or the kids talk about their houses, there's a class list, or it's walk to school day and your kid can't do it?

It's perfectly legal to move out of bounds after enrolling for the first time. You can remain at that school throughout the terminal grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, everyone else in the PK class is going to live IB. What are you going to do when kids have birthday parties, the school sends mail, you talk to the parents about where you live or the kids talk about their houses, there's a class list, or it's walk to school day and your kid can't do it?

It's perfectly legal to move out of bounds after enrolling for the first time. You can remain at that school throughout the terminal grade.

Right, but not *before* enrolling for the first time, which is OP's situation.

[Anonymous]

OP the real issue here is that you bought a home without paying attention to school boundaries and then suddenly realized it mattered and now you're trying to undo the mistake you made. If you'd just stayed in your condo an extra 6 months or so, you could have moved anywhere.

Sorry you messed this up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Omg, way too many people on this thread have no idea wtf they are talking about.

OP - it is not a lie to put your current address for lottery purposes and rank your IB as your #1 choice. The issue is that if you do that and then move OOB before May, you will be screwing yourself over because if you can't provide CURRENT proof of an IB address in May, you will lose your IB preference and go to the back of the OOB line. The proof of address must be current - e.g., last paystub - you can't use documents from February/March to prove residency in May.

If you are reasonably certain that you are going to move before May, you could also put your new address and rank the new IB school in your list as your IB. No one is checking at the time of the lottery that you live there; you'd just have to prove residency by May. But you can use only one address to get IB, so you'd have to be pretty sure that the new place will work out or, once again, you will be screwed.

If the new place is near a charter or a DCPS without a boundary (e.g., Dorothy Height and Military Rd. ELC) you should rank those, as residency does not factor into preferences for those schools.

This is the correct advice. If I were you and assuming you already sold your condo and bought a new house, I’d lottery for your current IB and if you get in (not a sure thing), then rent and move into an apartment in-bound for a few months and eat the cost. Then you can enroll in and start at the IB, then a few months later move into your house. That gets you rights to the school through the terminal grade without breaking any boundary rules. If you haven’t actually sold and bought yet, then stay put until the start of next school year and move in the fall. Note that you are allowed to stay through the terminal grade if you move OOB, but you have to report the change of address within 3 days or so. So if you move between enrollment and the start of the year, I don’t think they have to allow you to attend since the purpose of the policy is to allow continuity for kids that move, which wouldn’t be relevant if your kid never actually attended.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, everyone else in the PK class is going to live IB. What are you going to do when kids have birthday parties, the school sends mail, you talk to the parents about where you live or the kids talk about their houses, there's a class list, or it's walk to school day and your kid can't do it?

It's perfectly legal to move out of bounds after enrolling for the first time. You can remain at that school throughout the terminal grade.

You can remain at that school throughout the terminal grade at the principal's discretion is my understanding

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But I thought pre-K wasn’t based on IB!

What?

There is an in-boundary preference for every address in the city. It applies to every school application one way or another. If you live within the boundary for a school, you do not have to lottery into it like someone who lives outside the boundary does. You DO have to prove that you live within the boundary, though.

If you are confusing "IB/International Baccalaureate" with "IB/in-boundary" I apologize for misunderstanding.

This is not correct for pre-K. All pre-K (whether DCPS or charter) must be via the lottery. You are not entiltled to enroll directly into your in-bound until kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, everyone else in the PK class is going to live IB. What are you going to do when kids have birthday parties, the school sends mail, you talk to the parents about where you live or the kids talk about their houses, there's a class list, or it's walk to school day and your kid can't do it?

It's perfectly legal to move out of bounds after enrolling for the first time. You can remain at that school throughout the terminal grade.

Right, but not *before* enrolling for the first time, which is OP's situation.

I was addressing the original comment on how OP would navigate this over the coming years (birthday parties, school mail, parent conversations). THAT is not an issue as it's perfectly fine to move out of bounds after enrolling.