Worth Reporting - In-Boundary Fraud?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
+1. The only people I blame are DCPS for having only 1 traditional high school that could be considered even remotely acceptable to families who have aspiration for their children to attend and do well in competitive 4 year colleges |
Anonymous
You do realize that Wilson is only “acceptable” because people who live in the neighborhood have been giving it a chance for years. EOTP schools will never reach that status of acceptability if neighborhood families of means keep using escape hatches to W3 and charters. |
Anonymous
shockingly no one is willing to risk their child's education by going first. Right now no schools even have course offerings comparable to Wilson let alone large cohorts in those classes. Whoever blazes the trail is accepting that their kid will be grossly unprepared once they get to college |
Anonymous
Everyone is too worried about themselves to even care. Move in for a month and decamp after count day. Person making half-assed conversation at a birthday party or soccer game: "So where do you live?" Response: "We lived on Connecticut Avenue for a while but then moved to a bigger place." Half-listening: "Oh nice. We're on Foxhall Road." |
Anonymous
| There are people bending the rules to give their kids an advantage in schools everywhere. Redshirting in Virginia, tutors and test prep for magnet programs in Maryland, address "issues" in DC. For every parent that gets upset about it, there's another parent that does the same thing the following year. It doesn't seem worth fussing over something that just is what it is. |
Anonymous
At what point does cheating become so rampant they have to actually attempt to fix the system though? For point of reference, I live in Ward 5 and have zero intention of sending my kid to a Ward 3 school, nor does anyone I know who lives in Wards 5 or 6. Some people must game the system, but I've never met anyone who would own up to it. Instead, it's just a world with four major categories of families and kids: 1: Weak IB school, no lottery luck, stuck in weak IB school 2: Weak IB school, lottery luck, charter 3: Good IB school, lottery luck somewhat irrelevant, attends good IB 4: Good IB school, lottery luck, attends HRCS If people in Group 1 cheat, I say more power to them -- do what you need to do. If people in Groups 3 or 4 cheat, I get mad. I think the system is basically designed to encourage 1s to cheat, because if you keep striking out on the lottery, you have to move anyway. But how many 3s and 4s cheating would it take before the system broke? Also, the more 3s and 4s cheat, the harder it is for all the 1s who play by the rules. How many 1s are we going to screw over before we stop and say "wait, this is wrong"? |
Anonymous
We're a #1 and that's about where we are. We've been playing by the the rules for years with no luck, can't easily rent (too big kid age gap to share a room and pets), and are just about to pay off student loans and need to focus on catching up with retirement and building SOME savings. If we have to sell our house and move, we will. But with the market the way it is, we'd probably double our living expenses which that will set us back years more and that scares me. But the policy makers who established the rules knew there would be some people like us and wrote the rules the way they are anyways because the overwhelming number of people who benefit are true at-risk kids and need the stability of staying in one school while experiencing housing instability. We'd rent temporarily in boundary and cram our family into a small apartment (not sure what we'd do with the pets?), then move back home. I guess we could rent a studio for a short period and use the address without moving in, but that's actual fraud and we're actually not trying to break the rules. You may not like it, but trust me, neither do we. We'd love to send our kids to the charters the other kids in the neighborhood attend. But with a 6 year age gap, we never got the benefit of sibling preference and the lottery gods just never favored us. I really don't expect the Ward 3 parents upthread to understand our situation, but hopefully IRL people either don't care or are more understanding that none of this is our preferred path and we're doing the best we can for our family. If they don't, then they probably don't share our values anyways. And to answer your more general question, I don't think there are enough people in Groups 2-4 to really matter from the public policy perspective. People don't want to move their families or do long school commutes unless they have to. We're not at a HRCS so I don't know whether people with good IB schools opt for charters. I would think not, but maybe if there's a language or Montessori component they want? I think there are MANY families who commit actual residency fraud, a smaller number of people who rent strategically for a period to get in-bounds at good schools (rent in bounds knowing they'll later buy out of bounds), another smaller number who relocate permanently in better school zones, but only a small few who would either buy a condo just for schools or move into a short term rental. Some, but not enough to overweigh the intended goal of the policy to provide continuity for kids with housing instability. Ultimately, DC knows that it's poorer families who benefit from unenforced boundary rules. Using grandma or a friend's address to enroll in schools gets those kids into "better" schools and there is ZERO political willpower to kick those kids out of school and send them back to their in-bounds. So I just don't think it will ever happen, and there will be a few of us in #1 that are out of better options and take advantage of a loophole. |
Anonymous
| Wow |
Anonymous
Now this is hilarious!! Oh the great white savior that makes sacrifices to attend their neighborhood school in a neighborhood that is 85% white at 0% low income! Love how you look down at those that don’t want to actually go to Dunbar. |
Anonymous
"You do realize" is one of the biggest DCUM tells that whatever follows was written by an idiot. |
Anonymous
Thank you! Own their home, pay their taxes, done. I guess it could get sticky if they rent to a family with similar aged kids. Everyone's definition of reportable cheating is different but out of state people.are the worst. No taxes paid for property or income. Enjoying their home area but benefiting from the city. The DC website does say not interested in boundary issues. |
Anonymous
Yep - but it goes both ways. There are DC residents who have shady rentals/family claimed addresses in the burbs so they can go to school in MoCo, and a lot of DC residents proudly stole vaccines from MD residents because their white privileged asses couldn't wait two weeks to get vaccinated in DC, cause like "vacation goals" and such. There is a lot of fraud flowing across the border from DC to MD (and probably DC to VA). |
Anonymous
Oh, you again. |
Anonymous
Still f*ckin' that chicken, huh? |
Anonymous
Obviously the situation is very different and nobody wants to send their high achieving kid to Dunbar, but the point remains that schools EOTP will never improve if higher SES parents, black and white, keep opting out. How do you think things can ever change? DCPS cannot just start offering courses geared towards high achievers when none ever attend. Maybe it’s unsolvable and we just need to keep cramming everybody into Deal and Wilson. |