School Fraud- Cap Hill

[Anonymous]

Write to your council member.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MYOB

Lol. NP but this is ridiculous. This is OP's business. If people from outside the city are committing residency fraud to take spots in her IB school, and her children are unable to attend as a result, that is 100% her business. Don't be obtuse.

OP, I have mixed feelings about this because I do think some percentage of the cars with Maryland tags doing drop off are not residency fraud -- it's kids from divorced homes where one parent lives in PG county, or a grandparent or other caretaker who lives in Maryland doing drop off to help parents with challenging commutes or work schedules. So I don't like assuming that just because I see one kid get out of a car with Maryland tags, that family is committing fraud.

But yes, the sheer volume is concerning to me. I don't think you can explain away dozens of cars with Maryland tags doing drop off with these explanations. Schools in DC are so challenging as is, and stuff like this erodes faith in the system and sows distrust among school communities.

You say it's her business and then immediately come up with reasons why the tags might not be residency fraud. Exactly. She's not the residency police, and has no right to get into people's family lives.

of course, she does. Don't be obtuse. She has a vested interest in the school that her tax dollars pay for and her child should attend. If that's not the definition of "her business" I don't know what is. Do you say the same to other people who have an interest in what crimes are being committed in the neighborhood? Or are you the criminal whose child is fraudulently attending a DCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our school I have noticed a large sense of entitlement by people that have roots in our neighborhood but no longer live there. They believe their kids have a right to go to the neighborhood school because they went there or their mother/sibling/aunt/cousin lives in the neighborhood. They could care less that they don't even live in DC anymore. They're not even that shy about it. The school knows who they are but as long as they submit some kind of paperwork that checks the residency box they don't care.

This. You don't get to go to a public school because your parent went there if you no longer live in boundary. I think part of this is because people who used to live there can't afford to live there now so there's a socio-economic and race lens to all this too.

Our Capitol Hill ES had someone run for LSAT last year who is currently being sued by the DC AG for fraudulently enrolling his kids in the school previously (while he lived in MD and he and his wife were DC gov't employees).

[Anonymous]

At a school I worked at in DC, the registrar actually got in trouble for residency fraud along with two paraprofessionals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MYOB

Lol. NP but this is ridiculous. This is OP's business. If people from outside the city are committing residency fraud to take spots in her IB school, and her children are unable to attend as a result, that is 100% her business. Don't be obtuse.

OP, I have mixed feelings about this because I do think some percentage of the cars with Maryland tags doing drop off are not residency fraud -- it's kids from divorced homes where one parent lives in PG county, or a grandparent or other caretaker who lives in Maryland doing drop off to help parents with challenging commutes or work schedules. So I don't like assuming that just because I see one kid get out of a car with Maryland tags, that family is committing fraud.

But yes, the sheer volume is concerning to me. I don't think you can explain away dozens of cars with Maryland tags doing drop off with these explanations. Schools in DC are so challenging as is, and stuff like this erodes faith in the system and sows distrust among school communities.

If it is grandparent / babysitter / divorce - wouldn't you see similar patterns at other elementary schools? Why would it be centralized to Maury vs the neighboring elementary schools? What is unique there

How often are you observing drop off patterns at other schools? Maybe what’s unique is Maury parents are privileged enough to have extra time in their day to monitor license plates? Not how I would spend extra time, but I’m over here slumming it at my school.

[Anonymous]

It seems like potential fines from residency fraud could justify a team one of or two whose full-time gig is to do random audit of random schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At a school I worked at in DC, the registrar actually got in trouble for residency fraud along with two paraprofessionals.

Wow, that’s SO DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MYOB

Lol. NP but this is ridiculous. This is OP's business. If people from outside the city are committing residency fraud to take spots in her IB school, and her children are unable to attend as a result, that is 100% her business. Don't be obtuse.

OP, I have mixed feelings about this because I do think some percentage of the cars with Maryland tags doing drop off are not residency fraud -- it's kids from divorced homes where one parent lives in PG county, or a grandparent or other caretaker who lives in Maryland doing drop off to help parents with challenging commutes or work schedules. So I don't like assuming that just because I see one kid get out of a car with Maryland tags, that family is committing fraud.

But yes, the sheer volume is concerning to me. I don't think you can explain away dozens of cars with Maryland tags doing drop off with these explanations. Schools in DC are so challenging as is, and stuff like this erodes faith in the system and sows distrust among school communities.

If it is grandparent / babysitter / divorce - wouldn't you see similar patterns at other elementary schools? Why would it be centralized to Maury vs the neighboring elementary schools? What is unique there

How often are you observing drop off patterns at other schools? Maybe what’s unique is Maury parents are privileged enough to have extra time in their day to monitor license plates? Not how I would spend extra time, but I’m over here slumming it at my school.

I’m not a Maury parent but we walk to drop off and that means walking past the long line of cars doing drop off as we do. It does take time or energy to notice that more than half the cars doing drop off have Maryland plates. They are right there.

Guess I just go to a school where half the kids have a parent or nanny who lives in MD. Weird!

[Anonymous]

Residency fraud is actually way down in DC as compared to four or five years ago. More investigators have been hired and more parents get busted Randon audits get done. You can’t tell much from license plates. Becoming a license plate oriented vigilante is just silly.

[Anonymous]

We’re at Brent and we don’t see MD plates dropping off. We obviously have a bit of a boundary fraud problem, with families who own second homes on the Hill using them to enroll at Brent but not living in them. DCPS had to pick it’s battles meaning that cracking down on residency fraud is the focus, not boundary fraud as long as DC withholding is being done. I think this is the right approach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MYOB

STFU

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MYOB

Lol. NP but this is ridiculous. This is OP's business. If people from outside the city are committing residency fraud to take spots in her IB school, and her children are unable to attend as a result, that is 100% her business. Don't be obtuse.

OP, I have mixed feelings about this because I do think some percentage of the cars with Maryland tags doing drop off are not residency fraud -- it's kids from divorced homes where one parent lives in PG county, or a grandparent or other caretaker who lives in Maryland doing drop off to help parents with challenging commutes or work schedules. So I don't like assuming that just because I see one kid get out of a car with Maryland tags, that family is committing fraud.

But yes, the sheer volume is concerning to me. I don't think you can explain away dozens of cars with Maryland tags doing drop off with these explanations. Schools in DC are so challenging as is, and stuff like this erodes faith in the system and sows distrust among school communities.

You say it's her business and then immediately come up with reasons why the tags might not be residency fraud. Exactly. She's not the residency police, and has no right to get into people's family lives.

of course, she does. Don't be obtuse. She has a vested interest in the school that her tax dollars pay for and her child should attend. If that's not the definition of "her business" I don't know what is. Do you say the same to other people who have an interest in what crimes are being committed in the neighborhood? Or are you the criminal whose child is fraudulently attending a DCPS.

DING DING DING!

[Anonymous]

Has DC ever done an anonymous review of a school like Maury to see how big of problem residency fraud really is. More to just gain overall information, not to target individual families. I guess Duke Ellington had an audit a few years ago. But it is a different animal.

I work in social services (in PG county), and there are a lot of very convoluted custody and living situations that most of the snowflakes on this site could not imagine in a million years. I also agree that there are black PG county residents who feel entitled to send their kids to DC schools because family still live there and to them, it is "home".

School registrars aren't there to "investigate", they are just box checkers. How much do you want the district to spend on investigating residency fraud? Charter schools actively want as many kids as possible for count day so they get their money. Very little incentive there for investigation if a family can provide some sort of paperwork.

OP, I assume you have very young children. What is your end game? Charter school? Private school? How is that helping your community and local schools. You can be angry at boundary cheaters as yet another dysfunction of DCPS, but, ask yourself, are your hands clean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has DC ever done an anonymous review of a school like Maury to see how big of problem residency fraud really is. More to just gain overall information, not to target individual families. I guess Duke Ellington had an audit a few years ago. But it is a different animal.

I work in social services (in PG county), and there are a lot of very convoluted custody and living situations that most of the snowflakes on this site could not imagine in a million years. I also agree that there are black PG county residents who feel entitled to send their kids to DC schools because family still live there and to them, it is "home".

School registrars aren't there to "investigate", they are just box checkers. How much do you want the district to spend on investigating residency fraud? Charter schools actively want as many kids as possible for count day so they get their money. Very little incentive there for investigation if a family can provide some sort of paperwork.

OP, I assume you have very young children. What is your end game? Charter school? Private school? How is that helping your community and local schools. You can be angry at boundary cheaters as yet another dysfunction of DCPS, but, ask yourself, are your hands clean?

DC spends almost $30,000 per student. So for every cheater they catch they could provide housing for homeless families in DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has DC ever done an anonymous review of a school like Maury to see how big of problem residency fraud really is. More to just gain overall information, not to target individual families. I guess Duke Ellington had an audit a few years ago. But it is a different animal.

I work in social services (in PG county), and there are a lot of very convoluted custody and living situations that most of the snowflakes on this site could not imagine in a million years. I also agree that there are black PG county residents who feel entitled to send their kids to DC schools because family still live there and to them, it is "home".

School registrars aren't there to "investigate", they are just box checkers. How much do you want the district to spend on investigating residency fraud? Charter schools actively want as many kids as possible for count day so they get their money. Very little incentive there for investigation if a family can provide some sort of paperwork.

OP, I assume you have very young children. What is your end game? Charter school? Private school? How is that helping your community and local schools. You can be angry at boundary cheaters as yet another dysfunction of DCPS, but, ask yourself, are your hands clean?

DC spends almost $30,000 per student. So for every cheater they catch they could provide housing for homeless families in DC.

We both know that budgets don't really work this way.

I'm curious if you can provide me a link for "DC spends almost $30,000 per student". Budget numbers published by DCPS, are not nearly this high. Even if you are looking at the total budget--not just general education. This is what I am looking at. https://dcpsbudget.ourdcschools.org/ . Thanks for additional sources.