Scope of OSSE errors in Ellington case revealed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, even if the total number of students initially identified were not all cheaters, their paperwork was dodgy enough to raise concerns, which overall indicates the registrar at Ellington is not doing due diligence. Just because those families proved residence, doesn’t mean the paperwork was proper up front.

This is what jumped out at me. Even if all the kids ultimately proved their residency, the fact that so many were enrolled with suspect paperwork is a problem. I can understand that a few students are going to have unusual living arrangements, but most people should be able to supply the requisite number of approved documents. The school needs to be vetting this stuff better.

We do not know what the paperwork problems were. If the registrar was sloppy, that does not mean that the paperwork was "dodgy" in a blame the parents way. I have filed residency paperwork every year for the past 9 years. This past year I forgot to sign in one spot and months later our school registrar caught it and reached out to me and I then signed correctly. She is a good registrar and I made an inadvertent mistake and she failed to catch it.

It is a really big deal that OSSE made such huge errors. It undermines the ability to rely on its work and public claims. Yes, cheating is bad, but so is bungled enforcement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, even if the total number of students initially identified were not all cheaters, their paperwork was dodgy enough to raise concerns, which overall indicates the registrar at Ellington is not doing due diligence. Just because those families proved residence, doesn’t mean the paperwork was proper up front.

This is what jumped out at me. Even if all the kids ultimately proved their residency, the fact that so many were enrolled with suspect paperwork is a problem. I can understand that a few students are going to have unusual living arrangements, but most people should be able to supply the requisite number of approved documents. The school needs to be vetting this stuff better.

We do not know what the paperwork problems were. If the registrar was sloppy, that does not mean that the paperwork was "dodgy" in a blame the parents way. I have filed residency paperwork every year for the past 9 years. This past year I forgot to sign in one spot and months later our school registrar caught it and reached out to me and I then signed correctly. She is a good registrar and I made an inadvertent mistake and she failed to catch it.

It is a really big deal that OSSE made such huge errors. It undermines the ability to rely on its work and public claims. Yes, cheating is bad, but so is bungled enforcement.

It also cost we taxpayers money because the DC AG's office had to go to court at least 2 times to defend the sloppy work of OSSE, and families who were not cheating had to take time from work, hire attorneys, to prove a negative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, even if the total number of students initially identified were not all cheaters, their paperwork was dodgy enough to raise concerns, which overall indicates the registrar at Ellington is not doing due diligence. Just because those families proved residence, doesn’t mean the paperwork was proper up front.

This is what jumped out at me. Even if all the kids ultimately proved their residency, the fact that so many were enrolled with suspect paperwork is a problem. I can understand that a few students are going to have unusual living arrangements, but most people should be able to supply the requisite number of approved documents. The school needs to be vetting this stuff better.

We do not know what the paperwork problems were. If the registrar was sloppy, that does not mean that the paperwork was "dodgy" in a blame the parents way. I have filed residency paperwork every year for the past 9 years. This past year I forgot to sign in one spot and months later our school registrar caught it and reached out to me and I then signed correctly. She is a good registrar and I made an inadvertent mistake and she failed to catch it.

It is a really big deal that OSSE made such huge errors. It undermines the ability to rely on its work and public claims. Yes, cheating is bad, but so is bungled enforcement.

If you look at any of the OSSE documents they outline what type of records they encountered at Ellington. Since they can only go on what the school provides them they did the right thing, took the poor verification conducted by the school and used that as they law required them to do.

They did their job. Ellington, not so much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, even if the total number of students initially identified were not all cheaters, their paperwork was dodgy enough to raise concerns, which overall indicates the registrar at Ellington is not doing due diligence. Just because those families proved residence, doesn’t mean the paperwork was proper up front.

This is what jumped out at me. Even if all the kids ultimately proved their residency, the fact that so many were enrolled with suspect paperwork is a problem. I can understand that a few students are going to have unusual living arrangements, but most people should be able to supply the requisite number of approved documents. The school needs to be vetting this stuff better.

We do not know what the paperwork problems were. If the registrar was sloppy, that does not mean that the paperwork was "dodgy" in a blame the parents way. I have filed residency paperwork every year for the past 9 years. This past year I forgot to sign in one spot and months later our school registrar caught it and reached out to me and I then signed correctly. She is a good registrar and I made an inadvertent mistake and she failed to catch it.

It is a really big deal that OSSE made such huge errors. It undermines the ability to rely on its work and public claims. Yes, cheating is bad, but so is bungled enforcement.

It also cost we taxpayers money because the DC AG's office had to go to court at least 2 times to defend the sloppy work of Ellington, and families who were not cheating had to take time from work, hire attorneys, to prove a negative.

fixed that for you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, even if the total number of students initially identified were not all cheaters, their paperwork was dodgy enough to raise concerns, which overall indicates the registrar at Ellington is not doing due diligence. Just because those families proved residence, doesn’t mean the paperwork was proper up front.

This is what jumped out at me. Even if all the kids ultimately proved their residency, the fact that so many were enrolled with suspect paperwork is a problem. I can understand that a few students are going to have unusual living arrangements, but most people should be able to supply the requisite number of approved documents. The school needs to be vetting this stuff better.

We do not know what the paperwork problems were. If the registrar was sloppy, that does not mean that the paperwork was "dodgy" in a blame the parents way. I have filed residency paperwork every year for the past 9 years. This past year I forgot to sign in one spot and months later our school registrar caught it and reached out to me and I then signed correctly. She is a good registrar and I made an inadvertent mistake and she failed to catch it.

It is a really big deal that OSSE made such huge errors. It undermines the ability to rely on its work and public claims. Yes, cheating is bad, but so is bungled enforcement.

If you look at any of the OSSE documents they outline what type of records they encountered at Ellington. Since they can only go on what the school provides them they did the right thing, took the poor verification conducted by the school and used that as they law required them to do.

They did their job. Ellington, not so much.

And knowing that the records were bad should they have opened investigations and worked their way through them methodically, or started with a big press release saving that they'd found more than half of the students were non-residents?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, even if the total number of students initially identified were not all cheaters, their paperwork was dodgy enough to raise concerns, which overall indicates the registrar at Ellington is not doing due diligence. Just because those families proved residence, doesn’t mean the paperwork was proper up front.

This is what jumped out at me. Even if all the kids ultimately proved their residency, the fact that so many were enrolled with suspect paperwork is a problem. I can understand that a few students are going to have unusual living arrangements, but most people should be able to supply the requisite number of approved documents. The school needs to be vetting this stuff better.

We do not know what the paperwork problems were. If the registrar was sloppy, that does not mean that the paperwork was "dodgy" in a blame the parents way. I have filed residency paperwork every year for the past 9 years. This past year I forgot to sign in one spot and months later our school registrar caught it and reached out to me and I then signed correctly. She is a good registrar and I made an inadvertent mistake and she failed to catch it.

It is a really big deal that OSSE made such huge errors. It undermines the ability to rely on its work and public claims. Yes, cheating is bad, but so is bungled enforcement.

It also cost we taxpayers money because the DC AG's office had to go to court at least 2 times to defend the sloppy work of Ellington, and families who were not cheating had to take time from work, hire attorneys, to prove a negative.

No, it wasn't Ellington that failed to follow the city's prescribed process -- which includes due process and clear notification of charges -- for people accused of residency fraud. OSSE did that part, and was called on the carpet by the judge, ALL BY ITSELF in its haste.

They were probably seeking good headlines about its tough enforcement to cover up the dozens of projects it has botched (city wide science test being thrown out, teacher certification process, transportation of children with disabilities).
fixed that for you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But again the bar for proving residency is pretty low and as I understand this process the bar was not raised in the questionable cases here. Which doesn't say much about the efforts that 15% of families who apparently decided they'd been caught and didn't try to come up with a DC based utility bill.

Also 15% of the high number of cases turning out to be fraudulent is still a lot of students cheating - if you have similar numbers of students at Deal and Wilson cheating you are talking about a lot of students. (And I get that it is not 15% of the total student body that was caught)

15% of the 219 accused is 33 confirmed non-residents.

An additional 40-ish students still appear to have residency unconfirmed - my guess is that many of these students will ultimately clear the low residency bar but probably didn't/don't really live in DC.

OSSE did mess up. But 75 cases of almost certain residency fraud at a 520-student school is still a big deal.

+75.

Good job, OSSE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:75 cheating student seats in a small school is a lot. How much money is that? Almost a million in fraud?

A bit more than that. Ellington gets about 16,000 per student. For 75, it's $1.2 million per year in taxpayer money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, even if the total number of students initially identified were not all cheaters, their paperwork was dodgy enough to raise concerns, which overall indicates the registrar at Ellington is not doing due diligence. Just because those families proved residence, doesn’t mean the paperwork was proper up front.

This is what jumped out at me. Even if all the kids ultimately proved their residency, the fact that so many were enrolled with suspect paperwork is a problem. I can understand that a few students are going to have unusual living arrangements, but most people should be able to supply the requisite number of approved documents. The school needs to be vetting this stuff better.

We do not know what the paperwork problems were. If the registrar was sloppy, that does not mean that the paperwork was "dodgy" in a blame the parents way. I have filed residency paperwork every year for the past 9 years. This past year I forgot to sign in one spot and months later our school registrar caught it and reached out to me and I then signed correctly. She is a good registrar and I made an inadvertent mistake and she failed to catch it.

It is a really big deal that OSSE made such huge errors. It undermines the ability to rely on its work and public claims. Yes, cheating is bad, but so is bungled enforcement.

If you look at any of the OSSE documents they outline what type of records they encountered at Ellington. Since they can only go on what the school provides them they did the right thing, took the poor verification conducted by the school and used that as they law required them to do.

They did their job. Ellington, not so much.

And knowing that the records were bad should they have opened investigations and worked their way through them methodically, or started with a big press release saving that they'd found more than half of the students were non-residents?

How did they know the records were bad? They did open an investigation and worked their way through it methodically. They had what Ellington used to enroll the students. Which Ellington claimed was substantial enough to enroll students as residents. There were reports prior to the big report in May. There were interim steps. Did Ellington inform families of what was going on?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But again the bar for proving residency is pretty low and as I understand this process the bar was not raised in the questionable cases here. Which doesn't say much about the efforts that 15% of families who apparently decided they'd been caught and didn't try to come up with a DC based utility bill.

Also 15% of the high number of cases turning out to be fraudulent is still a lot of students cheating - if you have similar numbers of students at Deal and Wilson cheating you are talking about a lot of students. (And I get that it is not 15% of the total student body that was caught)

15% of the 219 accused is 33 confirmed non-residents.

An additional 40-ish students still appear to have residency unconfirmed - my guess is that many of these students will ultimately clear the low residency bar but probably didn't/don't really live in DC.

OSSE did mess up. But 75 cases of almost certain residency fraud at a 520-student school is still a big deal.

As Joe Biden would say, it's a BFD.

Except perhaps in Dysfunctional City.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, even if the total number of students initially identified were not all cheaters, their paperwork was dodgy enough to raise concerns, which overall indicates the registrar at Ellington is not doing due diligence. Just because those families proved residence, doesn’t mean the paperwork was proper up front.

This is what jumped out at me. Even if all the kids ultimately proved their residency, the fact that so many were enrolled with suspect paperwork is a problem. I can understand that a few students are going to have unusual living arrangements, but most people should be able to supply the requisite number of approved documents. The school needs to be vetting this stuff better.

We do not know what the paperwork problems were. If the registrar was sloppy, that does not mean that the paperwork was "dodgy" in a blame the parents way. I have filed residency paperwork every year for the past 9 years. This past year I forgot to sign in one spot and months later our school registrar caught it and reached out to me and I then signed correctly. She is a good registrar and I made an inadvertent mistake and she failed to catch it.

It is a really big deal that OSSE made such huge errors. It undermines the ability to rely on its work and public claims. Yes, cheating is bad, but so is bungled enforcement.

Unfortunately the lesson that OSSE will take from all of this is that investigating residency fraud is not worth the trouble. And Mayor Bowser will be more than happy to let them come to that conclusion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, even if the total number of students initially identified were not all cheaters, their paperwork was dodgy enough to raise concerns, which overall indicates the registrar at Ellington is not doing due diligence. Just because those families proved residence, doesn’t mean the paperwork was proper up front.

This is what jumped out at me. Even if all the kids ultimately proved their residency, the fact that so many were enrolled with suspect paperwork is a problem. I can understand that a few students are going to have unusual living arrangements, but most people should be able to supply the requisite number of approved documents. The school needs to be vetting this stuff better.

So the OSSE is coming out of it but really it is the school. Parents complain but if the paperwork was shoddy and wouldn't fly at another DCPS school then it's only right that they were asked to provide additional verification. Really OSSE was doing it's job after a leaker let be known what was going on, in the process numerous cheaters were caught and the ones who are legit are still there. Sorry for the parents who were doing the right thing, but it's always the few that mess things up for everyone ....

[Anonymous]

Real headline: At least 75 Students of 520 Fraudulently Enrolled! Scope of Parent/ Guardian Registration Paperwork Errors Revealed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Real headline: At least 75 Students of 520 Fraudulently Enrolled! Scope of Parent/ Guardian Registration Paperwork Errors Revealed.

This. OSSE is a disaster but it’s literally criminal that there were so many residency cheaters at Ellington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:33 confirmed cheaters is still way too much cheating, no matter how much OSSE got it wrong initially. Someone was negligent to let that many families get away with it and it cost DC tons in taxpayer dollars to foot the bill for however many years for each kid, not to mention the untold numbers of cheaters before them.

Anyone know what happened to the 11 non-residents found at Shepherd or the 6 at Breakthrough?

Where did you get this Shepherd number from? As a Shepherd parent I am interested in these findings!