Child's friend confessed family faked living in our good school cluster

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anchor baby, anchor address. No problemo en amerika.

Just tack-on another mobile classroom. Thanks again property tax payers!

BS. Pack your stuff and move to Arizona.

[Anonymous]

OP- Do not report this child and family. You have no facts. Reporting this familiy would cause a lot of embrassment and unnecessary negative focus on this child and his/her family by stirring up gossip and potential lies. As other posters have said, mind your own business, count your blessings and hope that one day you and your child are not in a position that forces you to have to do something you "think" this family has done for their child. Also, think how small and gross you will look to your child's administrators and teachers - especially if you are wrong and may be even if you are not. You really should leave this child alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where you at, OP? Come on back! Whatcha gonna do about it?

Maybe OP sees the ridiculousness of her ways and went to retreat into a corner somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Just bc they live outside the boundary doesn't mean they aren't attending the school legitimately. Maybe the kids parent or guardian teaches for MCPS or works for the administration? Maybe there's a child care issue? Maybe the kid was bullied in their home school and requested a transfer? Maybe their home school couldn't accommodate a special need?

Having said that, my neighbors nanny's kids go to our school by using the employers address, so I know how this sort of thing can be annoying. The interesting thing about that situation is that the nanny (who is Hispanic) wanted her kids to go to a diverse school. (her home school in SS is predominately Hispanic, while our school is predominately white with some AAs, Asians, and Hispanics). Before anyone flames me for making assumptions: I know this bc I'm friends with the nanny and chat with her at the bus stop each day, and she told me this herself. The employer lets her do this as part of their employment deal...sort of a perk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just bc they live outside the boundary doesn't mean they aren't attending the school legitimately. Maybe the kids parent or guardian teaches for MCPS or works for the administration? Maybe there's a child care issue? Maybe the kid was bullied in their home school and requested a transfer? Maybe their home school couldn't accommodate a special need?

Having said that, my neighbors nanny's kids go to our school by using the employers address, so I know how this sort of thing can be annoying. The interesting thing about that situation is that the nanny (who is Hispanic) wanted her kids to go to a diverse school. (her home school in SS is predominately Hispanic, while our school is predominately white with some AAs, Asians, and Hispanics). Before anyone flames me for making assumptions: I know this bc I'm friends with the nanny and chat with her at the bus stop each day, and she told me this herself. The employer lets her do this as part of their employment deal...sort of a perk.

It seems like one of the first steps in weeding out school crashers would be checking for multiple students at the same address. If school officials don't care enough to take that simple step then it must not be an issue to them.

[Anonymous]

This is evolved into a debate about boundary crashers and the ethics of doing so. But let's recap the OP:

OP's MCPS middle school kid told her that a friend lives in a further out suburb and is driven in. The friend is new to the school. OP assumes this means the friend's family has faked their address and cannot possibly be attending the school with legitimate documentation. OP does not assume the kid lives in a different county, merely a suburb of MoCo with a shitty school.

Then PPs dissolve into debate about whether OP should look the other way when a known fraud is operating in her midst, and whether or not it is perfectly ethical for the family to lie in order to go to a better school.

Here's the thing: The OP knows essentially nothing about this kid. She is relying on something her middle schooler told her about where his/her friend lives. OP doesn't even know where the kid lives. OP knows nothing about the situation, other than what her child has told her. OP's child only knows what the friend has said, and the friend could very likely know nothing about his/her own situation either. There are several scenarios for this story:

-kid lives out of bounds and the family has forged documents to attend a better school
-kid is legitimately attending the better school on a COSA for any number of approved reasons (none of which the OP or her child would necessarily know about: childcare, bullying, special need, special classes, family bought a home in bounds but has not moved into it yet, divorced parents and parent with primary custody lives in the boundary but kid spends the night with other parent sometimes who then drives the kid to school the next day, WHO KNOWS)
-kid is actually assigned to the better school but is driven in instead of riding the bus
-kid does not exist and OP's kid made the whole thing up because s/he knows OP is a nutcase

Given that OP has disappeared from this thread, I'm going to guess that the first one is probably not the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is evolved into a debate about boundary crashers and the ethics of doing so. But let's recap the OP:

OP's MCPS middle school kid told her that a friend lives in a further out suburb and is driven in. The friend is new to the school. OP assumes this means the friend's family has faked their address and cannot possibly be attending the school with legitimate documentation. OP does not assume the kid lives in a different county, merely a suburb of MoCo with a shitty school.

Then PPs dissolve into debate about whether OP should look the other way when a known fraud is operating in her midst, and whether or not it is perfectly ethical for the family to lie in order to go to a better school.

Here's the thing: The OP knows essentially nothing about this kid. She is relying on something her middle schooler told her about where his/her friend lives. OP doesn't even know where the kid lives. OP knows nothing about the situation, other than what her child has told her. OP's child only knows what the friend has said, and the friend could very likely know nothing about his/her own situation either. There are several scenarios for this story:

-kid lives out of bounds and the family has forged documents to attend a better school
-kid is legitimately attending the better school on a COSA for any number of approved reasons (none of which the OP or her child would necessarily know about: childcare, bullying, special need, special classes, family bought a home in bounds but has not moved into it yet, divorced parents and parent with primary custody lives in the boundary but kid spends the night with other parent sometimes who then drives the kid to school the next day, WHO KNOWS)
-kid is actually assigned to the better school but is driven in instead of riding the bus
-kid does not exist and OP's kid made the whole thing up because s/he knows OP is a nutcase

Given that OP has disappeared from this thread, I'm going to guess that the first one is probably not the case.

It seems odd to me that a middle school student would even be discussing an out of boundary issue. I bet 80% of middle school students are not even aware that they have to live within a certain boundary.

As parents know only half of what 6th to 12 graders come home with can be believed. The answer is somewhere in between.

My bet is that this is a load of bull or that the there is a legitimate reason for this kid to be attending this school.

[Anonymous]

I am always amazed that on DCUM the majority of posts on threads about address cheating come down on the side of saying nothing. Even if you don't have all the facts, one person reporting what they know is not enough to remove a legitimately enrolled student from a school, so arguments about how the situation could be legal (COSA, divorced parents, child of teacher, documented homelessness) seem pointless because the school would be able to verify these things and would ignore the report. If the school can't easily rule one of these situations in, they can look into the situation further. If the child is enrolled in a school they do not have a legal right to attend, they can and should be removed and returned to their original school. It is not punishing the student because the student is still entitled to get a publicly paid for education. None of us have the right to break the law just because it is inconvenient to us and it baffles me why, in this one area of the law, so many people take the stance that illegal activity should be ignored or tolerated.

If the activity isn't illegal, the family will not be impacted. If the activity is illegal, they should be made to comply with the law.

[Anonymous]

I couldn't bring myself to report this family, however I have to admit it bothers me if they aren't following the rules. What if everyone in MoCo decided to send their kids to Whitman or Churchill and lie about their address? I get that people will sometimes bend the rules to "do what they have to do" for their children, but that doesn't make it right.

[Anonymous]

People cheat about this all the time. I had a co-worker who fake rented a place from a friend in a good district so that his kid could go to a top school.

[Anonymous]

The schools here and in DC are always investigating this based on tips. Pass the info on to them and let them do their jobs investigating.

[Anonymous]

It is disgusting for OP to pass the questionable information she heard from her middle schooler on to someone at school to further investigate. OP would be causing trouble for an innocent child and most likely innocent parent(s). There are many legitimate reasons why her child's friend may be living "further out" and attending the school - AND it is none of OP's business nor anyone elses based on the little information OP has heard from her child. OP has no facts.

How would you feel to negatively change the course of a child's life because something you perceive is wrong bothers you? Please MYOB.

[Anonymous]

[quote]The schools here and in DC are always investigating this based on tips. Pass the info on to them and let them do their jobs investigating. [/quote]

This is a witch hunt based on the little information OP has from her child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People cheat about this all the time. I had a co-worker who fake rented a place from a friend in a good district so that his kid could go to a top school.

What about this person? Should we ignore him too? They told me that they faked it to get into the school district they wanted.

[Anonymous]

OP said "... I don't know this kid or family. It's a middle school in MoCo and this friend is fairly new to it. DC said family lives in a farther out suburb and is driven in...."

This is all the information OP has and she is bothered to the point of wanting to call the authorities on an innocent child and family, stir up gossip and cause unncessary harm. This is disgusting.

Also, shame on all the posters who have been so blessed to have never had to be placed in a position of having to make hard choices on their children's behalf and are encouraging OP to report this child. Have some compassion, one day you or your child my need it.