Jackson-Reed home visits for eligibility verification
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Anonymous
| Oh, and "not the OP"--I have no problem letting them in. I don't want to create any more headaches or delays than required for enrolling kid in school. |
Anonymous
I know a divorced family and the kid lives in MD with his mom, but goes to school in DC using his Dad’s address. |
Anonymous
Totally. But just because they said that doesn't mean that if you'd responded "nope, I gave you my documents!", they would have been able to do anything. What they say the rules are and what they can actually enforce are somewhat separate issues. |
Anonymous
Fair, but there are also things DCPS actually does care about but is inept at fixing/enforcing. Boundary fraud falls in that category. It absolutely is a problem for the aforementioned reasons -- it contributes to a poor distribution of kids across schools (overcrowding the best schools and under enrolling the struggling ones) while making a mockery of the lottery which is basically the centerpiece of the current school system. Some amount of boundary fraud is probably inevitable and likely DCPS accepts this. Also, DCPS, like most DC agencies, has some corruption and there are likely *some* people within DCPS who like a system that looks the other way on boundary fraud as it enables that corruption. But that doesn't mean DCPS doesn't care about boundary fraud at all, or that they don't do anything ever to address it. Home visits have actually been a feature of DCPS enrollment for a long time, and pre-Covid I knew more than one family (who was attending their actual by-right IB for their actual residence) who had one done when they first enrolled in a school. They don't do it for everyone and if you really want to skirt the boundary rules with an investment property or a tiny rental you don't live in, or a grandparents house (very common!), you will probably get away with it. But that doesn't mean DCPS *never* does home visits or that people never get caught. It just means it's not necessarily a priority and your odds of getting caught are relatively low. |
Anonymous
I believe there are individual principals who care. But if DCPS cared about boundary fraud, I would expect them to at some point have actually used this phrase -- on a form, or in a press release, or something. Instead, the phrase "residency fraud" appears 619 times on the dc.gov domain and "boundary fraud" appears zero times. The home visits are quite explicitly, in the law, an effort to get at residency fraud. If they happen to find that the kid is living somewhere else in DC then, sure, they'll get kicked out of the school, but if principals are doing investigations specifically for the purposes of investigating boundary fraud, they're doing that of their own accord and it's not what the law says these are for. |
Anonymous
Seriously? That is a tall claim. One that I completely disagree with. You clearly have some personal issues with JR. |
Anonymous
Go ahead and try it! |
Anonymous
To investigate people for boundary fraud? I don't think that's really a citizen's arrest kind of thing. |
Anonymous
Oh did you miss this post up thread. When you sign, it specifically says below and you agree to it. “I understand that if I provide false information or documentation, I can be referred to DC Office of the Inspector General for criminal prosecution or to the DC Office of the Attorney General for prosecution under the False Claims Act and under DC Code § 38-312 which provides that any person who knowingly supplies false information to a public official in connection with student residency verification shall be subject to payment of a fine of not more than $2,000 or imprisonment for not more than 90 days, but not both a fine and imprisonment.” |
Anonymous
BTW it doesn’t define residency fraud as another state. It means you are falsifying where you live so why can’t it be applied to DC residency fraud. |
Anonymous
| I had a coworker who lived and MD and enrolled her two kids in a DC public school right by our office. Didn’t even hide it. This went on for all four years I was there. I assume she used our work address which should have stood out because it’s not residential, no one can live at that address. And she did enough in the category of billing that I imagine her name was on official things that she used for so-called proof. I didn’t want to ask or know anymore… did not want to stir the pot among a small group of co workers… but it made me angry inside. |
Anonymous
The law explicitly defines residency as DC residency. This is the section on providing false information: "The fact that a parent or caregiver of a student has provided satisfactory evidence of residency or other primary caregiver status pursuant to this chapter shall not prevent a principal or other school administrator, a chartering authority, or the Office of the State Superintendent of Education from 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. Any person, including any District of Columbia public schools or public charter school official, who knowingly supplies false information to a public official in connection with student residency verification shall be subject to charges of tuition retroactively, and payment of a fine of not more than $2,000, or imprisonment for not more than 90 days, but not both a fine and imprisonment. The case of a person who knowing supplies false information may be referred by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education to the Office of Attorney General for consideration for prosecution." Could you fine people because they lied abut something entirely unrelated to residency, as it's clearly defined in the law? I guess you could try. But they're not going to owe back tuition. And no one's ever done it. And it's a weird reading of the law. |
Anonymous
Fines are unlikely, but if you commit boundary fraud and they spot check your residence and you don't have a right to the school you enrolled in, they will unenroll you and direct you towards your IB or the lottery. So it's different from residency fraud where you could actually be forced to pay tuition for the time your kid spent in DCPS. But that doesn't mean there's zero enforcement, or that no one cares, or that actually the rules allow people to play fast and loose with residency for boundary purposes. They don't--they are explicit about what constitutes residency for purposes of enrolling your kid in an inbound school. The question is what the risk is and how comfortable people are with it. They definitely usually don't do that much to confirm your address for IB purposes. But as OP's situation illustrates, they sometimes do. And it's the schools where overcrowding is an issue, and where people are motivated to try and cheat their way in, where you are most likely to get greater scrutiny on residency. |
Anonymous
In PK3/PK4 lottery this year, I am pretty sure I know of at least three instances in which families (apparently successfully) lied to get lottery preference. One claimed an in boundary address (where they don’t actually live), and two claimed their kids were Spanish dominant. Our family lucked out with the lottery this year, despite having neither of those preferences, so I am sort of like whatever, but if we’d been shut out I think I’d be resentful. |
Anonymous
If you think you can perjure yourself on official government documents, god speed to you, friend! The penalties specific to out of state violators wouldn’t apply (tuition). But lying on the residency form even if it’s “just” lying about your DC residence is still “supplying false information in connection with student residency verification.” Because, ya know, you lied on the student residency verification form. There are absolutely penalties that cover this in the law - perjury and false claims. |