Can someone give me the number to call to report boundary fraud?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the threshold was legality, not whether something is "normalized" or "excused"?

Please point out where it says "boundary fraud" in the DC code. There's a whole chapter on Residency Requirement and Nonresident Tuition and residency fraud is specifically discussed in § 38–312.03. Surely if there's a whole chapter on residency requirements, and boundary fraud is also illegal, that phrase must come up somewhere?

In the section where it talks about penalties for false information, there's this part: "establishing by information and other evidence that a student or the student’s parent or primary caregiver is not in fact a District of Columbia resident or an other primary caregiver." Maybe there's another part about false information penalties for if the student is a resident but lives somewhere in a different boundary and I just missed it. You can check and see for yourself. Or just find one single case where someone has been fined or imprisoned on the basis of this law since 2012, when it was last rewritten. That's typically what happens when something is illegal, right?

Best post of this long thread. Thanks, PP.

Boundary fraud is clearly very unpopular with the morally supercilious crowd on this thread, but illegal? This lawyer doesn't see that either. From what I gather, respecting school boundaries in DC is a practice, a policy and a hope of ed leaders and stakeholders, vs. a statutory requirement. Why not? Because DC public schools aren't popular or good enough across the board for DC politicians to make boundary fraud illegal. They'd have to concede that there are good and bad schools in the DC public system if they were to start fining or imprisoning parents for breaking the law to avoid certain schools. They aren't prepared to do that, for political reasons.

You sign forms attesting to the truth of the information you've given, and you are required to provide supporting documentation.

I don't know if boundary fraud is technically "illegal", but I do know it's technically wrong, is morally wrong, is an abuse of the system, and hurts other students and families.

You think if you can't be jailed for it, it's a free-for-all?

The law spells out what you are attesting to on that form that's relevant: residency within the district. If you lie about that, it's illegal. And again, this is validated by the fact that no one has been prosecuted for this. Jailed or fined.

You are free of course to think that it's morally wrong and hurtful.

But when you call things "fraud" or say "you sign forms", you are implying not just that it's wrong but that it's illegal. If it were, that would be a much stronger argument against it. That's why you're doing it. But it's not.

Go lobby the city council if you want. I personally would not care if it were illegal. Maybe it should be. But it's not. Until that changes, the phrase "boundary fraud" is just an attempt to equate something that is clearly illegal, residency fraud, with something you object to morally but that is not illegal.

The front page of the enrollment form asks for the parents' addresses and the student's address.

The bottom of the page says:
I confirm all the information provided above is correct to the best of my knowledge. I understand that DCPS will keep this information confidential and
will use it for DCPS business only. I understand that providing false information is punishable by law. I understand that I cannot maintain enrollment at
more than one school for SY25-26, and I am confirming my enrollment for SY25-26 at the school listed above. I understand that if I am enrolling
because of receiving a waitlist offer from this school, I will be removed from waitlists of all schools ranked below this school on my My School DC
application.
Print Name: _ Signature: _ Date:

The page thinks "providing false information is punishable by law."

Thank you. There is also an attestatiin that the information is true under penalty of perjury.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the threshold was legality, not whether something is "normalized" or "excused"?

Please point out where it says "boundary fraud" in the DC code. There's a whole chapter on Residency Requirement and Nonresident Tuition and residency fraud is specifically discussed in § 38–312.03. Surely if there's a whole chapter on residency requirements, and boundary fraud is also illegal, that phrase must come up somewhere?

In the section where it talks about penalties for false information, there's this part: "establishing by information and other evidence that a student or the student’s parent or primary caregiver is not in fact a District of Columbia resident or an other primary caregiver." Maybe there's another part about false information penalties for if the student is a resident but lives somewhere in a different boundary and I just missed it. You can check and see for yourself. Or just find one single case where someone has been fined or imprisoned on the basis of this law since 2012, when it was last rewritten. That's typically what happens when something is illegal, right?

Best post of this long thread. Thanks, PP.

Boundary fraud is clearly very unpopular with the morally supercilious crowd on this thread, but illegal? This lawyer doesn't see that either. From what I gather, respecting school boundaries in DC is a practice, a policy and a hope of ed leaders and stakeholders, vs. a statutory requirement. Why not? Because DC public schools aren't popular or good enough across the board for DC politicians to make boundary fraud illegal. They'd have to concede that there are good and bad schools in the DC public system if they were to start fining or imprisoning parents for breaking the law to avoid certain schools. They aren't prepared to do that, for political reasons.

You sign forms attesting to the truth of the information you've given, and you are required to provide supporting documentation.

I don't know if boundary fraud is technically "illegal", but I do know it's technically wrong, is morally wrong, is an abuse of the system, and hurts other students and families.

You think if you can't be jailed for it, it's a free-for-all?

The law spells out what you are attesting to on that form that's relevant: residency within the district. If you lie about that, it's illegal. And again, this is validated by the fact that no one has been prosecuted for this. Jailed or fined.

You are free of course to think that it's morally wrong and hurtful.

But when you call things "fraud" or say "you sign forms", you are implying not just that it's wrong but that it's illegal. If it were, that would be a much stronger argument against it. That's why you're doing it. But it's not.

Go lobby the city council if you want. I personally would not care if it were illegal. Maybe it should be. But it's not. Until that changes, the phrase "boundary fraud" is just an attempt to equate something that is clearly illegal, residency fraud, with something you object to morally but that is not illegal.

The front page of the enrollment form asks for the parents' addresses and the student's address.

The bottom of the page says:
I confirm all the information provided above is correct to the best of my knowledge. I understand that DCPS will keep this information confidential and
will use it for DCPS business only. I understand that providing false information is punishable by law. I understand that I cannot maintain enrollment at
more than one school for SY25-26, and I am confirming my enrollment for SY25-26 at the school listed above. I understand that if I am enrolling
because of receiving a waitlist offer from this school, I will be removed from waitlists of all schools ranked below this school on my My School DC
application.
Print Name: _ Signature: _ Date:

The page thinks "providing false information is punishable by law."

Where's a definition of the "parents' address" or the "student's address" on the enrollment form? I couldn't find it. A quick check of the equivalent forms for our neighboring school systems--MoCo, Arlington, PG County--taught me that in the suburbs, enrollment forms spell out what qualifies as the parents' and student's address (e.g. the address where the child sleeps most nights in the year).

If DCPS and DCPSC aren't going to define a student's address on the enrollment form, what's the relevance of said address? Seriously. Tell us.

Go ahead and try it lol.

[Anonymous]

We've established that there's no definition of either the parents' or student's address on the form per public school enrollment. OK, so where's the perjury in filling in the address or addresses as long as they're in the District?

You guys clearly aren't lawyers. Sounds like you should be pushing for these critical definitions to be generated and put on the enrollment form vs. posting here pretending that this has already happened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We've established that there's no definition of either the parents' or student's address on the form per public school enrollment. OK, so where's the perjury in filling in the address or addresses as long as they're in the District?

You guys clearly aren't lawyers. Sounds like you should be pushing for these critical definitions to be generated and put on the enrollment form vs. posting here pretending that this has already happened.

No, we have not established that.

The address has to match that on supporting documentation, and there are very specifics requirements for that. And if DCPS chooses to do a home visit, there are specific requirements that must be met.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We've established that there's no definition of either the parents' or student's address on the form per public school enrollment. OK, so where's the perjury in filling in the address or addresses as long as they're in the District?

You guys clearly aren't lawyers. Sounds like you should be pushing for these critical definitions to be generated and put on the enrollment form vs. posting here pretending that this has already happened.

Are you joking? Do you actually think you can put down a place where you don’t actually reside on a government form in order to get your choice of schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've established that there's no definition of either the parents' or student's address on the form per public school enrollment. OK, so where's the perjury in filling in the address or addresses as long as they're in the District?

You guys clearly aren't lawyers. Sounds like you should be pushing for these critical definitions to be generated and put on the enrollment form vs. posting here pretending that this has already happened.

No, we have not established that.

The address has to match that on supporting documentation, and there are very specifics requirements for that. And if DCPS chooses to do a home visit, there are specific requirements that must be met.

+1. I’d like to say PP is not a lawyer but sadly I know there are many lawyers that are not very good at interpreting the law even though they went to good schools and have good jobs.

[Anonymous]

I don't think anyone who is arguing this is illegal has read Chapter 3. Residency Requirement and Nonresident Tuition of the DC code. It's not subtle what's illegal. They didn't make it a mystery. You can put whatever you want on a form, but what determines legality is the actual law. If there were efforts to prosecute this there would be some ambiguity, but there are not. Not in the law, no prosecution, not illegal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think anyone who is arguing this is illegal has read Chapter 3. Residency Requirement and Nonresident Tuition of the DC code. It's not subtle what's illegal. They didn't make it a mystery. You can put whatever you want on a form, but what determines legality is the actual law. If there were efforts to prosecute this there would be some ambiguity, but there are not. Not in the law, no prosecution, not illegal.

Ffs. Just because one type of conduct is defined as illegal does not mean that other types of related conduct are not illegal. You attest under penalty of perjury that the form is true. perjury is a separate criminal violation. I truly hope and pray you are not a lawyer if you believe what you wrote.

[Anonymous]

I don’t care for boundary fraud but agree thatDCPS and DCPCS inadvertently support a too-wide gray area by failing to define reside per residency as it relates to school attendance. PPs are correct that the burbs take pains to do this while DC does not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think anyone who is arguing this is illegal has read Chapter 3. Residency Requirement and Nonresident Tuition of the DC code. It's not subtle what's illegal. They didn't make it a mystery. You can put whatever you want on a form, but what determines legality is the actual law. If there were efforts to prosecute this there would be some ambiguity, but there are not. Not in the law, no prosecution, not illegal.

Ffs. Just because one type of conduct is defined as illegal does not mean that other types of related conduct are not illegal. You attest under penalty of perjury that the form is true. perjury is a separate criminal violation. I truly hope and pray you are not a lawyer if you believe what you wrote.

OK. So if I lie about my middle name, is that "middle name fraud"? Am I perjuring myself? And if not, what makes it different from "boundary fraud", since neither of them are explicitly spelled out as being illegal? Maybe your answer is "because there's a government benefit tied to your address and not your middle name." But DC does not see it that way, and that's very clear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think anyone who is arguing this is illegal has read Chapter 3. Residency Requirement and Nonresident Tuition of the DC code. It's not subtle what's illegal. They didn't make it a mystery. You can put whatever you want on a form, but what determines legality is the actual law. If there were efforts to prosecute this there would be some ambiguity, but there are not. Not in the law, no prosecution, not illegal.

Ffs. Just because one type of conduct is defined as illegal does not mean that other types of related conduct are not illegal. You attest under penalty of perjury that the form is true. perjury is a separate criminal violation. I truly hope and pray you are not a lawyer if you believe what you wrote.

OK. So if I lie about my middle name, is that "middle name fraud"? Am I perjuring myself? And if not, what makes it different from "boundary fraud", since neither of them are explicitly spelled out as being illegal? Maybe your answer is "because there's a government benefit tied to your address and not your middle name." But DC does not see it that way, and that's very clear.

When you sign the form you attest to EVERYTHING on the form being truthful. Lying about where you live is not truthful. Not telling the truth on a government form is perjury, a crime. I’m not sure if there is a materiality exception with respect to your name, but your domicile is obviously material. You have come to the utterly wrong conclusion that because DC defines one type of fraud with specificity (residency) that you can perjure everything else on the form. It’s laughably stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t care for boundary fraud but agree thatDCPS and DCPCS inadvertently support a too-wide gray area by failing to define reside per residency as it relates to school attendance. PPs are correct that the burbs take pains to do this while DC does not.

The definition is in the form. It’s your dwelling place where you continuously reside. It’s not actually a hard legal definition. There could be some gray areas (like going to a different house part of the school year) but obviously doesn’t cover a rental property you don’t live in, your aunt’s address, and the like.

[Anonymous]

Who cares? Certainly not DCPS leaders, the city council or Bowser. As long as that remains the case, I fail to see the point of this shame game and all the hand wringing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who cares? Certainly not DCPS leaders, the city council or Bowser. As long as that remains the case, I fail to see the point of this shame game and all the hand wringing.

Because it's dishonest and unfair to other students.

[Anonymous]

OK, it's dishonest and unfair to other students. So what are you going to do about it? Nothing more than come here carping about the scofflaws who engage in these disreputable practices? Pipe down.