Non dc residents
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Anonymous
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At work the other day, at lunch with 2 of the staff people there. One recently moved to Virginia and is applying her child to one of the best dc charters. The other life's in Maryland and was talking about relatives who drive all the way into dcps for the great services they get. She is planning to do the same with her kids. Both are pretty new to the area and I'm sure don't have dc relatives.
They were talking about it like it was such a given-not hiding It in the least. Is it this easy? How do they get away with it? I'm a DC resident and my kids are in dcps. |
Anonymous
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There is a legal way to do this-- if there are spots available (i.e. no waitlist), then people outside of DC can pay tuition for their child to attend a DCPS or charter.
However, address cheating is rampant at certain schools, and there seems to be little effort to stop it. |
Anonymous
| Surprisingly, it's never been discussed here before. |
Anonymous
The one applying to the charter hasn't done anything wrong yet. If the charter is popular, getting in is not guaranteed. However, if she does get in, she'll have to move to DC and prove residency. In principle, she could pay non-resident tuition. In practice, every DC resident who applied would have to be offered a spot first, even those with poorer lottery outcomes. This seems unlikely for a desirable charter. |
Anonymous
It used to be like that back in the day, as in pre-2007. But things have changed a lot. If they were talking about young children, I can see how folks might think it was still a good idea because there is no public PS3/PK4 outside the District. But I doubt the services in DC are "great" other than being free. The co-workers may not have any overt desire to cheat. They may just be working off of old information and hearsay. Or maybe they know people at schools with a history of looking the other way at addresses like some, not all, near PG County border. If it were me, also a DCPS parent, the next time it comes up in conversation, I would probably say something like "oh, so you are planning on paying out of state tuition? I heard that nowadays it is something like $10,000 to go to a DC public or charter while living outside the city. The fine for cheating is now $2,000 plus tuition. Supposedly jail time too, but that hasn't happened. Yet." (chew, chew, chew, wait silently) Your colleagues might find it helpful to get up to date information from an actual DC parent. |
Anonymous
| For some years, DCPS did not investigate fraud by non-residents, but after this issue received a lot of attention by the DC Council the government is much more aggressive in enforcing the law. And DC taxpayers and parents who play by the rules are less reticent to say something about scammers. |
Anonymous
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My husbands very educated, upper middle class coworker mentioned after last lottery that her child was #1 on the WL for a sought after school. She lives in MD and just said, yeah, its an out-of-bounds lottery, so I applied. I actually called the school to ensure she was removed from the list and the woman was none the wiser.
If nothing else, listen, find out what their results are when the time comes, and call the schools and report them if they have a descent spot. They will not have a clue that you reported anything, because any good school will appreciate the information and take seriously. |
Anonymous
| This is PP, just to clarify, the 'upper middle class' in my post was just to point that she was not someone who could not afford private care/schools for her children and still felt that it was ok to send her kids here if she 'won' the lottery. |
Anonymous
Presumably you were positive that this person was not planning to move to DC if her child got in from the waitlist before you reported her. It seems perfectly fair to apply and see if you get in and then move. Especially if the charter you want is so tough to get into. I could understand people doing it the other way around for the great science/math school in Fairfax (is it TJ? Don't remember the name) where the acceptance rate is very low. We have decided to stay in DC because of Basis, even though for us it is a sacrifice lifestyle wise because we were looking at houses in Montgomery County and the kind of house we want and could afford just is not within our reach here. When we were in Janney/Mann/Key etc DCPS elementary school we had a couple of kids who did not return the following year because they did not live in DC, and were told by one family that the principal had discovered that they were not DC residents at some point. They were allowed to finish out the year but were not allowed to come back. This was a few years ago but although I don't know how the school learned of the "fraud" , the family was treated very nicely and the child was not uprooted in the middle of the school year. Even though there are only a few spaces for OOB at this elementary school, I would consider fraud in a charter that goes all the way through high school and has a lottery and a wait list a much more serious infraction because it is free and may determine where your child goes to college in addition to what kind of education s/he gets from 5th to 12th grade. We would have moved from Md to DC for Basis, but only if we got in and there was a sibling preference (there is), and since the lottery does not depend on where you live in DC I think there is no excuse that people cannot afford to move to DC etc. We would have given up our big house in Montgomery County, and I still wish we had more money and could move up in DC. But we are staying here for Basis, and we know one family who moved to DC for Basis this year. Parents make a lot of sacrifices for their children's education, whether it is moving to a better neighborhood but a smaller house, or moving across state lines. However, I think parents are perfectly within their rights to wait to see if their kid gets into Washington Latin, for example, before uprooting their entire family by having to move into the city and give up a good elementary school for their younger kids, their house, and neighborhood for just the possibility of getting in to the charter they want when they are in Md or VA. And I think it goes both ways. And I remember people on the wait list for Washington Latin who waited and waited and waited, and did not get in. And I think that will be true at Basis in a few years for a certain type of kid. But I don't think you should have to live here before you apply because you may already be in a good situation somewhere else (we were thinking Pyle/Whitman). It ought to be perfectly permissible to move over the summer if your child gets in. |
Anonymous
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I don't think it is "perfectly fair" to apply and then decide to move, especially if you have a "good situation" in your different home state. Sorry. You can rationalize it all you want.
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Anonymous
Yeah, that's ridiculous. It's one thing if you're in the process of moving and apply, it's quite another to think, "we'll move if admitted." I doubt any public school system would accept this. |
Anonymous
That's ridiculous. SO kids who actually live in the city do not get in, while some kid who lives in the 'burbs enters the lottery and gets a spot? No freakin' way. |
Anonymous
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A lot of people cheat OP and DC is so negligent on everything but parking enforcement, that people get away with go to DCPS for years. My thought is they should send parking enforcement after them. DC has very generous assistance for people with special needs. I know cheaters from MD and VA who avail themselves of getting DC public money to go to the Lab School for example . It's galling.
A lot of PG County folks have drive their kids into DCPS too and I met some kids from VA on the bus going to Duke Ellington. DC really needs to crack down. MD + VA would never let us DC folks get away with that. |
Anonymous
The new DC law set up a process for dealing with this without needing to stalk people. It's designed to protect everyone's privacy and minimize disruption for children. Nobody needs to go directly to a school (which may or may not follow up). 1. For any school, Call the OSSE hotline at 202-727-7224 2. For charters, call PCSB at 202-328-2660 or Email residencyfraud@dcpcsb.org on-line charter form collects info like description of person, car, etc. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/embeddedform?formkey=dHVXSUxuVE5aT1dvY3hPZkEwMnJfRHc6MQ |
Anonymous
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OP re moving for BASIS - we all probably know plenty of people who have made or changed their decision about where to live based on schools.
Of the people you all know who could not afford private school for their children and work in the DC area, how many do you know who either bought their first house together in Maryland or Virginia based in part on the public school system, or who left the city once their child was old enough for school because the neighborhood they lived in did not have a good public school? How many do you know who decided after elementary school if they were not zoned for Deal (or even if they were) to move to Maryland or Virginia for middle and high school if they did not send their kids to private school? We know people in all these categories. We know plenty of people who bought right over the border of DC who plan to send their kids all the way through the school system they have chosen. Many of these schools rank fairly highly in the various "best public high schools in America" lists every year. No DC high school can claim that thus far. We are not talking about foreign countries here or areas that are an additional hour away. Precisely because parts of Maryland and Virginia that are so close to DC have good public schools, we know a lot of people who have moved so that their kids can go to those schools. Quite a few kids who went to my private DC school lived in Maryland 30 years ago, and I'm sure that is still the case. Growing up here I did not really think about when I crossed a state line, or if someone lived in Maryland or Virginia instead of DC. In fact, the only people with children who can live anywhere are those who take the private school route from beginning to end. We bought our house based on the elementary school when we moved to DC but since we only had one kid who was 2 at the time (we now have a few more and one is in 6th grade), we did not think beyond that. We live in the city and were starting to believe that we were going to have to move out to give our kids the best public education available after 5th grade. But that kind of public education - a large school system with tracking, a fair number of AP classes, but also an emphasis on sports and probably social status, would not have been an ideal environment for us (we both went to small private schools where we knew almost every single kid in our high school and our entire graduating class), and we were not looking forward to having our kids in these large schools either. My husband grew up in NYC where there were lots of public magnet schools based on different skill sets and selective admissions for each one (no lottery), where the kids ended up going to MIT etc. I know the names of some high schools in DC that are focused on particular skills (like Duke Ellington), but we have nothing like the schools in New York. Then Basis came along and changed our minds. Our kids have a real aptitude for math and science. Given the low acceptance rate at the one great math and science school in Fairfax (which is based on merit but admits fewer applicants than some Ivy League colleges and universities), we had decided that we could not count on all 3 kids getting in to TJ. But we now have a kid in Basis, and are very optimistic. Had we moved out earlier, we would have moved back - provided we knew our first child was in. DC is a very transient city. People move from here and to here very quickly from places very far away. And I barely blink when someone moves across the river. So if the only reason a family would move here or move back is a specific charter school acceptance, the same way a family might move to fairfax if accepted to TJ, I don't see how that is wrong. People become Virginia residents to go to UVA, but that usually just means moving across the river, not moving an entire family. |