Is this residency fraud?

[Anonymous]

Imagine if the city council never had to worry about this or spend finite resources on investigations. They could spend more time and energy and money on educating kids. How could this happen? People could be honest. Wouldn’t that be great?

Too bad. Sorry, kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really hope some of you don’t start following random grannies just to out the OP...

...wouldn’t surprise me in Trumps America.

oh stfu about Trump. OP is taking a spot away from a poor kid - she's literally buying a spot in a better school likely in part due to her own racism about the Shaw schools.

also it was OP who asked is it fraud. we're just answering the question.

+1. I also don’t like residency fraud (including arrangements like OP’s) for this reason—it means poor/middle class kids are less likely to lottery into good schools—but also for admittedly selfish reasons.

Our IB is has a growing percentage of IB families, although much lower IB overall than the JKLMs. When people like OP pull these sorts of shenanigans, it means that other IB families that actually live in the neighborhood are more likely to get waitlisted for PK3/4. When this happens, they go to other schools, like HRCS. Once they start down a different path, some stay on it. That means fewer actual IB families at the school. OP and others like her undermine the sense of community that comes with families in the same neighborhood at the school. Families doing what OP is doing are less likely to make the trek across town for evening school activities, no play dates since they don’t want to give away their arrangement, no bumping into each other at the playground, etc.

This is why I find what OP is doing annoying—both for the “buying” her way into a school, and the undermined sense of community at our neighborhood school. I’m not annoyed enough to follow them home or report them, but TBH I wouldn’t mind if someone else did.

Not impressed. You read this sort of wimpy post on most of the threads about school residency. Why not put your money where your mouth is? Follow them "home," report them, film them, chat with your principal etc. rather than hoping somebody else will. Alternatively, live and let live, since you can't get families that own IB and don't rent their places out busted, not under the current residency verification system.

Sure you could. “Where do the children sleep?” The end.

What do you know about residency fraud investigations? You've been investigated? We were, this year. We offered to have DCPS do a home visit but they declined. They just wanted more residency verification docs immediately. The investigator asked no questions. We handed over the docs she wanted and were cleared on the spot. Friends had a similar experience.

They probably sent a PI out to your house and verified that you actually live there.

[Anonymous]

Not sure what that means. I'm not under the impression that actually DCPS hires PIs. Neighbors say nobody from DCPS talked to them.

We saw a printout of our property tax record for the in-boundary property at the residency fraud office when we went in to meet with the investigator.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not sure what that means. I'm not under the impression that actually DCPS hires PIs. Neighbors say nobody from DCPS talked to them.

We saw a printout of our property tax record for the in-boundary property at the residency fraud office when we went in to meet with the investigator.

Of course they hire PIs. More to the point - your documents likely showed that you lived in a properly sized house for your family size in the neighborhood for a period of multiple years. Very different from OP (and you weren't committing fraud in the first place, so not sure what the point of your contribution is anyway.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure what that means. I'm not under the impression that actually DCPS hires PIs. Neighbors say nobody from DCPS talked to them.

We saw a printout of our property tax record for the in-boundary property at the residency fraud office when we went in to meet with the investigator.

Of course they hire PIs. More to the point - your documents likely showed that you lived in a properly sized house for your family size in the neighborhood for a period of multiple years. Very different from OP (and you weren't committing fraud in the first place, so not sure what the point of your contribution is anyway.)

One tell is whether you are claiming the homestead deduction at the home you say you are living in. So I guess OP would want to claim it for the WOTP condo and not the Shaw house. You can only claim it at one property.

[Anonymous]

You guys are making DCPS sound like a tony school system in the NY or Boston burbs that hires PIs (roaming around in surveillance vans) to weed out residency cheaters. Hardly the case. There are DCPS families with kids cramming into one-bedroom apartments, even studios, due to high rents in the City. I'm not convinced that PIs are out there looking for properly sized houses for families.

You don't have to take the homestead deduction. If I were OP, I wouldn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You guys are making DCPS sound like a tony school system in the NY or Boston burbs that hires PIs (roaming around in surveillance vans) to weed out residency cheaters. Hardly the case. There are DCPS families with kids cramming into one-bedroom apartments, even studios, due to high rents in the City. I'm not convinced that PIs are out there looking for properly sized houses for families.

You don't have to take the homestead deduction. If I were OP, I wouldn't.

look, there absolutely are PIs for residency fraud (the ones not living in DC at all). different charge and different jurisdiction. but, you're dreaming if you don't think DC's crackdown could extend to lying on the forms in general. At this point, OP's supporters are just trying to help her find ways to lie better, but at the end of the day, if she and her daughter don't sleep there at all, it's not going to be a hard case to suss out that the family actually lives in their Shaw rowhouse, and not the 400 sq foot condo.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like they're going at MD cheaters who aren't paying DC tax, vs. boundary cheaters who own in-boundary.

https://www.fraud-magazine.com/article.aspx?id=4294984805

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like they're going at MD cheaters who aren't paying DC tax, vs. boundary cheaters who own in-boundary.

https://www.fraud-magazine.com/article.aspx?id=4294984805

I think that's the case now. Who knows, maybe in the next few years, there'll be political pressure to pursue boundary cheaters too, as more schools start to fill up with in-boundary students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys are making DCPS sound like a tony school system in the NY or Boston burbs that hires PIs (roaming around in surveillance vans) to weed out residency cheaters. Hardly the case. There are DCPS families with kids cramming into one-bedroom apartments, even studios, due to high rents in the City. I'm not convinced that PIs are out there looking for properly sized houses for families.

You don't have to take the homestead deduction. If I were OP, I wouldn't.

look, there absolutely are PIs for residency fraud (the ones not living in DC at all). different charge and different jurisdiction. but, you're dreaming if you don't think DC's crackdown could extend to lying on the forms in general. At this point, OP's supporters are just trying to help her find ways to lie better, but at the end of the day, if she and her daughter don't sleep there at all, it's not going to be a hard case to suss out that the family actually lives in their Shaw rowhouse, and not the 400 sq foot condo.

Yes, the but the mom still has her right to due process as a DC resident. She could appeal if an investigation didn't go here way, live in the condo while she does. That's why DCPS goes for low-hanging PG County fruit. Tangling with UMC property buyers is a bridge too far for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like they're going at MD cheaters who aren't paying DC tax, vs. boundary cheaters who own in-boundary.

https://www.fraud-magazine.com/article.aspx?id=4294984805

I think that's the case now. Who knows, maybe in the next few years, there'll be political pressure to pursue boundary cheaters too, as more schools start to fill up with in-boundary students.

OSSE has resources to go after residency fraud -- people who live outside DC and go to DC schools.

If anyone is going to do anything more significant about DCPS boundary cheating (fraud?) it would have to come from the DCPS budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like they're going at MD cheaters who aren't paying DC tax, vs. boundary cheaters who own in-boundary.

https://www.fraud-magazine.com/article.aspx?id=4294984805

I think that's the case now. Who knows, maybe in the next few years, there'll be political pressure to pursue boundary cheaters too, as more schools start to fill up with in-boundary students.

I dunno, schools in Upper NW have faced mounting capacity pressures for many years now.

I'm not sensing the political pressure to pursue boundary cheaters kicking in, not with OSSE and DCPS continuing to do a poor job in catching MD boundary cheaters. It could easily take a decade or more for this to happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You guys are making DCPS sound like a tony school system in the NY or Boston burbs that hires PIs (roaming around in surveillance vans) to weed out residency cheaters. Hardly the case. There are DCPS families with kids cramming into one-bedroom apartments, even studios, due to high rents in the City. I'm not convinced that PIs are out there looking for properly sized houses for families.

You don't have to take the homestead deduction. If I were OP, I wouldn't.

If I were OSSE or DCPS I'd hire PIs or bounty hunters. Pay them when they find legally verifiable fraud. That will incentivize getting after the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like they're going at MD cheaters who aren't paying DC tax, vs. boundary cheaters who own in-boundary.

https://www.fraud-magazine.com/article.aspx?id=4294984805

I think that's the case now. Who knows, maybe in the next few years, there'll be political pressure to pursue boundary cheaters too, as more schools start to fill up with in-boundary students.

I dunno, schools in Upper NW have faced mounting capacity pressures for many years now.

I'm not sensing the political pressure to pursue boundary cheaters kicking in, not with OSSE and DCPS continuing to do a poor job in catching MD boundary cheaters. It could easily take a decade or more for this to happen.

10 percent of Deal and Wilson students may live in Maryland. Overcrowding in these schools, and the distinct possibility that more schools will be removed from their feeder patterns, will certainly ratchet up political pressure to find and expel the fraudsters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys are making DCPS sound like a tony school system in the NY or Boston burbs that hires PIs (roaming around in surveillance vans) to weed out residency cheaters. Hardly the case. There are DCPS families with kids cramming into one-bedroom apartments, even studios, due to high rents in the City. I'm not convinced that PIs are out there looking for properly sized houses for families.

You don't have to take the homestead deduction. If I were OP, I wouldn't.

look, there absolutely are PIs for residency fraud (the ones not living in DC at all). different charge and different jurisdiction. but, you're dreaming if you don't think DC's crackdown could extend to lying on the forms in general. At this point, OP's supporters are just trying to help her find ways to lie better, but at the end of the day, if she and her daughter don't sleep there at all, it's not going to be a hard case to suss out that the family actually lives in their Shaw rowhouse, and not the 400 sq foot condo.

Yes, the but the mom still has her right to due process as a DC resident. She could appeal if an investigation didn't go here way, live in the condo while she does. That's why DCPS goes for low-hanging PG County fruit. Tangling with UMC property buyers is a bridge too far for them.

It seems that there's a lot of fruit to pick.