New thread for the OIG request for 3 years of residency data for all schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All OIG has asked for so far is student info - and any tuition payments from OSSE for 3 years.

No requests have been made of any other agencies.

How do you know? They mat have blanket data sharing agreements.

Because the OIG posts all their requests on their website. And some data - such as tax or Medicaid data - can't be shared without the taxpayers' permission.

DC can do that for DC TAG, for example, because college attendance isn't compulsory, unlike school. Another example is Medicaid; a public school can collect reimbursements from Medicaid for any special education related services a child with Medicaid receives, but only if the child's parents gives permission for the data to be shared.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not just DCPS, I know residency cheaters at Breakthrough, Bridges and Bethune.

OIG's request asked OSSE for info on every public school student -- charters and DCPS.

Breakthrough and Shepherd had high percentages of problematic residency documents in the 2017-18 audit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The gigantic number of MD license plates dropping off at schools located in proximity to federal and city office buildings.

I hate this ... our after school babysitter lives in MD (we live close to the MD border) and it makes me nervous that nervous busy bodies will be making assumptions. When I pick up, I use the metro most often since we only have one car.

You shouldn't feel nervous. Some schools are flooded with MD tags, at both drop off and pickup. It's NOT the occasional grandma, babysitter or divorced couple. We attended Bethune for a year and now a Brookland school that more closely verifies residency and the difference in the number of plates from Maryland is night and day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd be interested in hearing folks speculate on the methodology the OIG might use to do this investigation. It seems to me that the Office of Tax and Revenue is the only city agency that would have independent records of a guardian/child relationship plus a claimed DC resident status where addresses could be verified/checked.

The data from the schools will necessarily only have one parent name, which could change year to year (depending on who fills out the residency forms). Connecting the parent/child name from the school to some other city records (using address?) seems really time/labor intensive.

Child welfare would have some address and guardianship records for both children and adults.

Child Support maintains a lot of parent-child relationship records so they can get the right payments to the right people. They may have parental addresses as well.

Medicaid has a ton of data on families.

I haven't looked at the letter, but they may not be auditing student residency, but how well schools are doing complying with the requirements to check residency. There are lots of thoughts (as PP) on how to change the residency check, so they may just be asking how well schools are doing at the current system. (Do the names match on all the documents, are they the right documents, etc.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd be interested in hearing folks speculate on the methodology the OIG might use to do this investigation. It seems to me that the Office of Tax and Revenue is the only city agency that would have independent records of a guardian/child relationship plus a claimed DC resident status where addresses could be verified/checked.

The data from the schools will necessarily only have one parent name, which could change year to year (depending on who fills out the residency forms). Connecting the parent/child name from the school to some other city records (using address?) seems really time/labor intensive.

Child welfare would have some address and guardianship records for both children and adults.

Child Support maintains a lot of parent-child relationship records so they can get the right payments to the right people. They may have parental addresses as well.

Medicaid has a ton of data on families.

I haven't looked at the letter, but they may not be auditing student residency, but how well schools are doing complying with the requirements to check residency. There are lots of thoughts (as PP) on how to change the residency check, so they may just be asking how well schools are doing at the current system. (Do the names match on all the documents, are they the right documents, etc.)

Heh. Looked at the letter. Nope, they are not checking methodology. I'm actually kind of shocked that they expect that all schools have names and addresses in an extractable format. I thought my school was too scattered to keep a database like that, but that they might have folders of enrollment documents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The gigantic number of MD license plates dropping off at schools located in proximity to federal and city office buildings.

I hate this ... our after school babysitter lives in MD (we live close to the MD border) and it makes me nervous that nervous busy bodies will be making assumptions. When I pick up, I use the metro most often since we only have one car.

I find it hard to believe that 30% of the drop offs at our DCPS are MD babysitters. I also had a kid tell me last week about his friend at CMI who lives in MD. Good for DC on trying to get to the bottom of this at every school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd be interested in hearing folks speculate on the methodology the OIG might use to do this investigation. It seems to me that the Office of Tax and Revenue is the only city agency that would have independent records of a guardian/child relationship plus a claimed DC resident status where addresses could be verified/checked.

The data from the schools will necessarily only have one parent name, which could change year to year (depending on who fills out the residency forms). Connecting the parent/child name from the school to some other city records (using address?) seems really time/labor intensive.

Child welfare would have some address and guardianship records for both children and adults.

Child Support maintains a lot of parent-child relationship records so they can get the right payments to the right people. They may have parental addresses as well.

Medicaid has a ton of data on families.

I haven't looked at the letter, but they may not be auditing student residency, but how well schools are doing complying with the requirements to check residency. There are lots of thoughts (as PP) on how to change the residency check, so they may just be asking how well schools are doing at the current system. (Do the names match on all the documents, are they the right documents, etc.)

Heh. Looked at the letter. Nope, they are not checking methodology. I'm actually kind of shocked that they expect that all schools have names and addresses in an extractable format. I thought my school was too scattered to keep a database like that, but that they might have folders of enrollment documents.

All schools have to enter student data into one central database managed by OSSE. It's called EBIS or something like that. Once your child enters school they get a unique ID that follows them from school to school, or sector to sector.

[Anonymous]

this is a good idea not just for residency cheating concerns, but also for churn and interest in attractiveness of programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They can also check the data against itself. So if family X is using an address for their kids, and so is family Y, it should trigger a deeper look. Same thing if one address (a single family residence) has 10 kids using it.

This is how boundary fraud for purposes of recruiting out of boundary athletes seems to work. I'd love to know if this review will look at athletes, since boundary fraud is rampant and high school coaches continue to flout the rules egregiously with absolutely no expectation of enforcement.

[Anonymous]

Schools have every incentive to keep warm bodies in the seats so they can continue getting funds for each child.

If the OIG really makes a meaningful impact and roots out fraud, I think we will see some degree of school consolidation and closing down of certain fly-by-night charters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd be interested in hearing folks speculate on the methodology the OIG might use to do this investigation. It seems to me that the Office of Tax and Revenue is the only city agency that would have independent records of a guardian/child relationship plus a claimed DC resident status where addresses could be verified/checked.

The data from the schools will necessarily only have one parent name, which could change year to year (depending on who fills out the residency forms). Connecting the parent/child name from the school to some other city records (using address?) seems really time/labor intensive.

Hey, maybe they can finally snag the rich families who take the homestead exemption on their $$$ houses while simultaneously claiming, for school registration purposes, to actually live in a tiny apartment within the Deal (and sometimes Wilson) boundaries. Their assumption is, of course, that DC will never get together enough to cross-check. Maybe the jig is up....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not just DCPS, I know residency cheaters at Breakthrough, Bridges and Bethune.

OIG's request asked OSSE for info on every public school student -- charters and DCPS.

Breakthrough and Shepherd had high percentages of problematic residency documents in the 2017-18 audit.

Will these schools still have these problems?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Schools have every incentive to keep warm bodies in the seats so they can continue getting funds for each child.

If the OIG really makes a meaningful impact and roots out fraud, I think we will see some degree of school consolidation and closing down of certain fly-by-night charters.

Agreed - expect charter leaders to fight this tooth and nail. Lots of city planners have no idea where all the kids have been coming from - even with the gentrifiers baby boom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd be interested in hearing folks speculate on the methodology the OIG might use to do this investigation. It seems to me that the Office of Tax and Revenue is the only city agency that would have independent records of a guardian/child relationship plus a claimed DC resident status where addresses could be verified/checked.

The data from the schools will necessarily only have one parent name, which could change year to year (depending on who fills out the residency forms). Connecting the parent/child name from the school to some other city records (using address?) seems really time/labor intensive.

Hey, maybe they can finally snag the rich families who take the homestead exemption on their $$$ houses while simultaneously claiming, for school registration purposes, to actually live in a tiny apartment within the Deal (and sometimes Wilson) boundaries. Their assumption is, of course, that DC will never get together enough to cross-check. Maybe the jig is up....

That would be a totally different investigation of within DC boundary fraud - not residency fraud. DCPS or the DME could do that on its own (or ask for assistance from another agency) tomorrow, if they chose to.

[Anonymous]

Residency fraud steals resources for DC families. They should do a sweeping enforcement and prosecute each family.