School residency cheaters investigated

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would think the issue of retention and enrollment numbers is a big deal for any charter school that offers immersion language for French, Hebrew, and Chinese.

Either due to the mass third grade exodus to private and suburban schools, or due to the common movement of families in and out of D.C., children leave these schools at later grades. I do not think it is that easy to find First through Six graders at a fluency level in French, Hebrew. and Chinese to replace any that have left, also, what is the funding for half a class going to look like?

(http://dcimmersion.org/language-immersion-programs-in-the-us-and-in-dc/immersion-schools-in-dc/)

What does this have to do with residency?

The DC Public Charter Board does not permit kids who are fluent in target languages to replace those who have left charter immersion schools. This means that empty charter spots are left empty after the school's cut-off entry year (somewhere between PreK4 in Lamb's case, and second grade).

It's connection with residency is that for funding, it is desirable to keep the MD/VA third graders who are proficient in these rarer languages (French, Hebrew. and Chinese), then boot them out after they have moved to MD. Otherwise, there would be a third grade class of Hebrew with 14 DC students and 10 of them gone to MD/VA. Funding of 1 full-time teacher for 14 kids may not add up.

This form of cheating happens rarely. There are only a handful of Chinese-speaking kids of the 400 YY students, and one or two Hebrew speakers at Sela. Even Stokes has very few French-speaking kids, mostly Haitian immigrants.

So what happens when kids move out of these language programs? If there is a third grade class of 20 French students and 5 move away or enroll in private school, can 5 students without any exposure to French fill those spaces for the fourth grade?

Stokes will fill the slots at all years. YY does not backfill after 2nd grade. Their model is different: Twice as many classes at the early levels to help balance attrition. Also you can pay tuition at YY if you want to move out of the District after grade 2 but keep your spot. No idea how Sela handles it.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your answer. The YY model makes sense. I am not sure how Stokes would find students with sufficient French fluency to fill vacancies at the upper grades, but in a place as international as D.C., it probably should not be too difficult.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
What does this have to do with residency?

The DC Public Charter Board does not permit kids who are fluent in target languages to replace those who have left charter immersion schools. This means that empty charter spots are left empty after the school's cut-off entry year (somewhere between PreK4 in Lamb's case, and second grade).

It's connection with residency is that for funding, it is desirable to keep the MD/VA third graders who are proficient in these rarer languages (French, Hebrew. and Chinese), then boot them out after they have moved to MD. Otherwise, there would be a third grade class of Hebrew with 14 DC students and 10 of them gone to MD/VA. Funding of 1 full-time teacher for 14 kids may not add up.

This form of cheating happens rarely. There are only a handful of Chinese-speaking kids of the 400 YY students, and one or two Hebrew speakers at Sela. Even Stokes has very few French-speaking kids, mostly Haitian immigrants.

So what happens when kids move out of these language programs? If there is a third grade class of 20 French students and 5 move away or enroll in private school, can 5 students without any exposure to French fill those spaces for the fourth grade?

Stokes will fill the slots at all years. YY does not backfill after 2nd grade. Their model is different: Twice as many classes at the early levels to help balance attrition. Also you can pay tuition at YY if you want to move out of the District after grade 2 but keep your spot. No idea how Sela handles it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would think the issue of retention and enrollment numbers is a big deal for any charter school that offers immersion language for French, Hebrew, and Chinese.

Either due to the mass third grade exodus to private and suburban schools, or due to the common movement of families in and out of D.C., children leave these schools at later grades. I do not think it is that easy to find First through Six graders at a fluency level in French, Hebrew. and Chinese to replace any that have left, also, what is the funding for half a class going to look like?

(http://dcimmersion.org/language-immersion-programs-in-the-us-and-in-dc/immersion-schools-in-dc/)

What does this have to do with residency?

The DC Public Charter Board does not permit kids who are fluent in target languages to replace those who have left charter immersion schools. This means that empty charter spots are left empty after the school's cut-off entry year (somewhere between PreK4 in Lamb's case, and second grade).

It's connection with residency is that for funding, it is desirable to keep the MD/VA third graders who are proficient in these rarer languages (French, Hebrew. and Chinese), then boot them out after they have moved to MD. Otherwise, there would be a third grade class of Hebrew with 14 DC students and 10 of them gone to MD/VA. Funding of 1 full-time teacher for 14 kids may not add up.

This form of cheating happens rarely. There are only a handful of Chinese-speaking kids of the 400 YY students, and one or two Hebrew speakers at Sela. Even Stokes has very few French-speaking kids, mostly Haitian immigrants.

So what happens when kids move out of these language programs? If there is a third grade class of 20 French students and 5 move away or enroll in private school, can 5 students without any exposure to French fill those spaces for the fourth grade?

Stokes will fill the slots at all years. YY does not backfill after 2nd grade. Their model is different: Twice as many classes at the early levels to help balance attrition. Also you can pay tuition at YY if you want to move out of the District after grade 2 but keep your spot. No idea how Sela handles it.

It seems like there would be a disincentive at Stokes to want to actively kick out any upper grade French students for moving outside of D.C. without some sort of assurance their slot would be filled.

[Anonymous]

As a teacher (in MCPS), my worry is for the physical safety and emotional well-being of these small children being tailed daily by strangers. When I read that the parents were taking evasive maneuvers to avoid being followed, I became worried that there will be a car accident.
For over a decade, I've taught DC and PG kids attending MCPS schools illegally as well as MD residents fraudulently enrolled in a more desirable zone. Unless the child was a major disruption, I didn't care. Public education needs a major overhaul before I'll blame parents for trying to access whatever school best meets their child's needs. That includes the before and aftercare that parents with young kids depend on so they can work to support their families.
To me, these articles preyed on racial stereotypes and class anxieties, pitting the (white) parents who spent their life savings on million dollar townhouses against the (black) parents who supposedly live in PG so they can afford luxury SUVs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Katie Watson, graduate of Viola's journalism program, is apparently quite proud of her Christian faith. No doubt, the Jesus proverb, "suffer the small children to come to DC" factors large in her commitment to the task of uncovering this story.

Viola also looks like a fine institute of higher learning, if you'd like all of your higher learning to be accompanied by Bible verses and a Christian slant.

Enough with the school snobbery. A reporter who cut her teeth on the night shift at police court usually has more hustle and results than three 'journalists' who walked off the Harvard Crimson.

Normally, I would agree. And I respect someone of faith. Of course, Biola also makes its professors sign a statement that says marriage is between a man and a woman. And it has 3% black population. Most recently, it was in the news because one of its students drew a swastika on a black kid's wall.

What does that have to do with Ms. Watson, who lives in silver spring? (And Mr rosniak, who lives in Alexandria?) Nothing. Or, at least as much nothing as someone with MD plates dropping off a child. Someone attending a college with pretty questionable ethics in its Christianity is not necessarily a racist. Or a self righteous little Jesus freak who seems to have missed the entire point of His teachings, because... "liberalism." I'm sure the fine schools she attended as a child in Knoxville were also not particularly objective. And did not have black people.

There are ways to prove residence fraud. Letting two cub reporters working for an online publication that pretty much typifies "yellow journalism" "expose" people by stalking them, and then whine about their escalades (presumably it's rosniak who keeps bringing this up, as it is all over his Twitter feed, outrage about public employees having escalades.) Is not proving anything. It is, somewhat happily, laying the grounds wide open for the DC to be used for libel though. Indeed, by being such crap journalists, our two intrepid anti-heroes have pretty much made it more difficult for any legitimate reporters to investigate the issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

So yeah, you should be alarmed if your child is regularly being shuttled from school to a house in Maryland. People are pissed off at the blatant fraud that is commonplace at some schools and that has gotten the attention of this click-bait website. Perhaps you should express your frustration to your councilmember, who might be able to get some answers out of OSSE, because "all that's required" is not enough to keep people from cheating the system.

Again: raise of hands/posts of DCUM posters shut out of the schools mentioned in the article: Ludlow Taylor, Eagle Academy, KIPP, JO Wilson?

Hello? Anyone?

Here is a list of numbers on waitlists:
https://data.dcpcsb.org/Waitlists-Spaces-Available/Wait-List-SY15-16-as-of-March-27-2015/3ibf-jtff
It even lists the breakdowns for waitlist #s for each grade.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/15/546073.page

[Anonymous]

None of this would occur if certain parents weren't committing fraud.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would think the issue of retention and enrollment numbers is a big deal for any charter school that offers immersion language for French, Hebrew, and Chinese.

Either due to the mass third grade exodus to private and suburban schools, or due to the common movement of families in and out of D.C., children leave these schools at later grades. I do not think it is that easy to find First through Six graders at a fluency level in French, Hebrew. and Chinese to replace any that have left, also, what is the funding for half a class going to look like?

(http://dcimmersion.org/language-immersion-programs-in-the-us-and-in-dc/immersion-schools-in-dc/)

What does this have to do with residency?

The DC Public Charter Board does not permit kids who are fluent in target languages to replace those who have left charter immersion schools. This means that empty charter spots are left empty after the school's cut-off entry year (somewhere between PreK4 in Lamb's case, and second grade).

It's connection with residency is that for funding, it is desirable to keep the MD/VA third graders who are proficient in these rarer languages (French, Hebrew. and Chinese), then boot them out after they have moved to MD. Otherwise, there would be a third grade class of Hebrew with 14 DC students and 10 of them gone to MD/VA. Funding of 1 full-time teacher for 14 kids may not add up.

This form of cheating happens rarely. There are only a handful of Chinese-speaking kids of the 400 YY students, and one or two Hebrew speakers at Sela. Even Stokes has very few French-speaking kids, mostly Haitian immigrants.

So what happens when kids move out of these language programs? If there is a third grade class of 20 French students and 5 move away or enroll in private school, can 5 students without any exposure to French fill those spaces for the fourth grade?

Stokes will fill the slots at all years. YY does not backfill after 2nd grade. Their model is different: Twice as many classes at the early levels to help balance attrition. Also you can pay tuition at YY if you want to move out of the District after grade 2 but keep your spot. No idea how Sela handles it.

It seems like there would be a disincentive at Stokes to want to actively kick out any upper grade French students for moving outside of D.C. without some sort of assurance their slot would be filled.

No there are waitlists at each grade
https://data.dcpcsb.org/Waitlists-Spaces-Available/Wait-List-SY15-16-as-of-March-27-2015/3ibf-jtff

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would think the issue of retention and enrollment numbers is a big deal for any charter school that offers immersion language for French, Hebrew, and Chinese.

Either due to the mass third grade exodus to private and suburban schools, or due to the common movement of families in and out of D.C., children leave these schools at later grades. I do not think it is that easy to find First through Six graders at a fluency level in French, Hebrew. and Chinese to replace any that have left, also, what is the funding for half a class going to look like?

(http://dcimmersion.org/language-immersion-programs-in-the-us-and-in-dc/immersion-schools-in-dc/)

What does this have to do with residency?

The DC Public Charter Board does not permit kids who are fluent in target languages to replace those who have left charter immersion schools. This means that empty charter spots are left empty after the school's cut-off entry year (somewhere between PreK4 in Lamb's case, and second grade).

It's connection with residency is that for funding, it is desirable to keep the MD/VA third graders who are proficient in these rarer languages (French, Hebrew. and Chinese), then boot them out after they have moved to MD. Otherwise, there would be a third grade class of Hebrew with 14 DC students and 10 of them gone to MD/VA. Funding of 1 full-time teacher for 14 kids may not add up.

This form of cheating happens rarely. There are only a handful of Chinese-speaking kids of the 400 YY students, and one or two Hebrew speakers at Sela. Even Stokes has very few French-speaking kids, mostly Haitian immigrants.

So what happens when kids move out of these language programs? If there is a third grade class of 20 French students and 5 move away or enroll in private school, can 5 students without any exposure to French fill those spaces for the fourth grade?

Stokes will fill the slots at all years. YY does not backfill after 2nd grade. Their model is different: Twice as many classes at the early levels to help balance attrition. Also you can pay tuition at YY if you want to move out of the District after grade 2 but keep your spot. No idea how Sela handles it.

It seems like there would be a disincentive at Stokes to want to actively kick out any upper grade French students for moving outside of D.C. without some sort of assurance their slot would be filled.

No there are waitlists at each grade
https://data.dcpcsb.org/Waitlists-Spaces-Available/Wait-List-SY15-16-as-of-March-27-2015/3ibf-jtff

Those numbers do not break down if it is for the English, Spanish, or French classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So yeah, you should be alarmed if your child is regularly being shuttled from school to a house in Maryland. People are pissed off at the blatant fraud that is commonplace at some schools and that has gotten the attention of this click-bait website. Perhaps you should express your frustration to your councilmember, who might be able to get some answers out of OSSE, because "all that's required" is not enough to keep people from cheating the system.

Again: raise of hands/posts of DCUM posters shut out of the schools mentioned in the article: Ludlow Taylor, Eagle Academy, KIPP, JO Wilson?

Hello? Anyone?

Here is a list of numbers on waitlists:
https://data.dcpcsb.org/Waitlists-Spaces-Available/Wait-List-SY15-16-as-of-March-27-2015/3ibf-jtff
It even lists the breakdowns for waitlist #s for each grade.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/15/546073.page

That's charter schools and last year.


try again.
http://www.myschooldc.org/resources/data/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I'm enjoying this thread, the one on MOTH - where people are not annonymous has been equally entertaining.

Link? Is it possible to read if you're not on the list Serv?

MOTH has definitely helped cast people I thought were neighbors and friends in a different light. True colors.

Agreed. I was stunned to read some of these posts.

[Anonymous]

DCPS is a DC agency - can't they check against the other databases instead of relying solely on what could be fraudulent pay stubs and other documentation? They should have cross-agency access to TANF, SNAP, the DC Office of Tax, etc. It seems like the verification information is already at their fingertips and that they could just work with the other agencies to get that information quite easily.

This thread has blown this into a race issue and it's not. It's a DCPS prioritizing MD (or VA) cheaters over DC taxpayers issue. Especially in the case of charter schools, DCPS is literally allowing MD students to take spaces away from DC students. What makes the MD cheaters more entitled than the DC kids who also may face socioeconomic challenges? Why should any DC taxpayer have to pay another 1-2 full years of daycare because they can't get into a PK-3 or PK-4 spot that's given to a non-taxpaying family who is legally ineligible to take that spot? This is not a moral issue, it is a legal and financial issue. If I already pay tons of taxes for the schools and then I have to pay $20k+ for daycare because I can't get into the schools, damn that will make me mad. And some people can't afford great daycare - those kids risk being in another year of a bad situation because they can't get into their school. And many needy DC kids are being robbed of an opportunity to attend a charter school that's better than their neighborhood school because cheaters have taken their spots. I just can't understand the people who are defending this - it's stealing money from our pockets and from the programs that support DC students, including those with special needs and other challenges.

People are unhappy with the tactics used, but this has been going on forever with NO CONSEQUENCES and no concern on behalf of DCPS. So another approach was needed. Relying on officials to handle this wasn't going to change any of the results, so people have taken another tack. Focusing on the tactic is a distraction from the fact that the ultimate problem is the endemic practice of stealing money and educational opportunities from DC kids (and parents) and giving to MD kids (and parents).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So yeah, you should be alarmed if your child is regularly being shuttled from school to a house in Maryland. People are pissed off at the blatant fraud that is commonplace at some schools and that has gotten the attention of this click-bait website. Perhaps you should express your frustration to your councilmember, who might be able to get some answers out of OSSE, because "all that's required" is not enough to keep people from cheating the system.

Again: raise of hands/posts of DCUM posters shut out of the schools mentioned in the article: Ludlow Taylor, Eagle Academy, KIPP, JO Wilson?

Hello? Anyone?

Here is a list of numbers on waitlists:
https://data.dcpcsb.org/Waitlists-Spaces-Available/Wait-List-SY15-16-as-of-March-27-2015/3ibf-jtff
It even lists the breakdowns for waitlist #s for each grade.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/15/546073.page

Do you know why this list doesn't include all schools? I am trying to find Creative Minds and Bruce Monroe

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So yeah, you should be alarmed if your child is regularly being shuttled from school to a house in Maryland. People are pissed off at the blatant fraud that is commonplace at some schools and that has gotten the attention of this click-bait website. Perhaps you should express your frustration to your councilmember, who might be able to get some answers out of OSSE, because "all that's required" is not enough to keep people from cheating the system.

Again: raise of hands/posts of DCUM posters shut out of the schools mentioned in the article: Ludlow Taylor, Eagle Academy, KIPP, JO Wilson?

Hello? Anyone?

Here is a list of numbers on waitlists:
https://data.dcpcsb.org/Waitlists-Spaces-Available/Wait-List-SY15-16-as-of-March-27-2015/3ibf-jtff
It even lists the breakdowns for waitlist #s for each grade.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/15/546073.page

Do you know why this list doesn't include all schools? I am trying to find Creative Minds and Bruce Monroe

Bruce Monroe won't be on this list because it's not a charter school. Creative Minds is number 29.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS is a DC agency - can't they check against the other databases instead of relying solely on what could be fraudulent pay stubs and other documentation? They should have cross-agency access to TANF, SNAP, the DC Office of Tax, etc. It seems like the verification information is already at their fingertips and that they could just work with the other agencies to get that information quite easily.

This thread has blown this into a race issue and it's not. It's a DCPS prioritizing MD (or VA) cheaters over DC taxpayers issue. Especially in the case of charter schools, DCPS is literally allowing MD students to take spaces away from DC students. What makes the MD cheaters more entitled than the DC kids who also may face socioeconomic challenges? Why should any DC taxpayer have to pay another 1-2 full years of daycare because they can't get into a PK-3 or PK-4 spot that's given to a non-taxpaying family who is legally ineligible to take that spot? This is not a moral issue, it is a legal and financial issue. If I already pay tons of taxes for the schools and then I have to pay $20k+ for daycare because I can't get into the schools, damn that will make me mad. And some people can't afford great daycare - those kids risk being in another year of a bad situation because they can't get into their school. And many needy DC kids are being robbed of an opportunity to attend a charter school that's better than their neighborhood school because cheaters have taken their spots. I just can't understand the people who are defending this - it's stealing money from our pockets and from the programs that support DC students, including those with special needs and other challenges.

People are unhappy with the tactics used, but this has been going on forever with NO CONSEQUENCES and no concern on behalf of DCPS. So another approach was needed. Relying on officials to handle this wasn't going to change any of the results, so people have taken another tack. Focusing on the tactic is a distraction from the fact that the ultimate problem is the endemic practice of stealing money and educational opportunities from DC kids (and parents) and giving to MD kids (and parents).

I want you to know don't disagree with you, except about one thing: the way this was done by the daily caller reporters was wrong, sets all sorts of questionable precedents and pretty much goes against every ethic I can think of. Which is kind of funny, considering the Christian thing... but I digress.

It is okay to demand more accountability. It is not okay to witch hunt children. It is not okay to interrogate people in front of their children, or go through their trash, looking for "proof." Just for fun, I wonder of the daily caller could find some African American stringers and send them on an assignment to follow some folks through McLean borders.