Reply to WaPo takes deep dive into DCPS residency fraud

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m confused how people falsify records.  You need two forms to prove residency, unless you have a pay stub.  It’s not that easy to do.  Practically, how do people falsify these forms?[/quote]

Depends on your job. I could go into my self-service ADP portal at work and change my address now, and leave it that way for the next 6-8 weeks for enrollment, and then change it back.

The article listed other scenarios -- renting an apartment or room in District; claiming your child lives at the address of a friend or relative (have your name on their utility bill). [/quote]

Renting an apartment or room in the District should not be a problem here. If the child physically resides in a DC rental during the week but a parent also has a non-DC house, then that child should get DC in-state tuition. There are a lot of scenarios - for example, separated parents - where this makes sense for the child. That's why the actual metric DC uses to assess a student's residency status is the physical residence of the child, not what is legally designated to be the primary residence of the parent.[/quote]

In my opinion, the kids needs to have the parent/guardian who is registering them for school be a DC taxpayer. This is the crux of the issue. And, ideally, OSSE can pull this verification directly from the District's tax systems.

Plus, the law around "primary caretaker" needs to change. All that is required from grandma or auntie is writing a letter attesting that they are the primary caretaker and that the child lives with them. It's so loosey-goosey and lax. Basically any District citizen can claim to be the child's caretaker for purposes of qualifying DC residency.[/quote]

I think you're way out of touch with the home situations of a lot of DC students. If the student is physically in DC during the school year, that should be (and is) what qualifies the student as a DC resident. If a grandma claims caretaker status but the kid is residing outside of DC, that clearly should not be allowed. But there are a lot of grandmas and aunties actually taking care of kids in DC while their parents live somewhere else - and these are not the cases DC should focus its limited resources on. Let's stop the cases with kids physically residing out of DC first - that's the bulk of the problem and the most blatant violations.

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Then the kid needs to be a dependent on Grandma or Aunty's DC tax return. It's a really easy threshold to meet and is a simple change in her withholding formula. I am totally sympathetic to that Mom and Dad may live elsewhere or totally be out of the picture, so the relative takes care of the child.

But my strong suspicion is that many middle class families are using the Grandma/Auntie attestation to say she is the main caregiver because the law on this is so loosey-goosey. And then the parents are claiming the child as a dependent on their MD taxes, while driving the kid into DC everyday.[/quote]

the most obvious fix would be requiring non-parent guardianship to be validated as a dependent on tax form, but taxes are filed annually for most residents and might not overlap with enrollment period.  Taxes aren't file for previous year until 3.5 months into following year, after 3/4 of a given school year has completed.  Even so a legal  mechanism should apply for declaring guardianship which can be validated as needed[/quote]

Yeah but legal guardianship can take quite awhile to establish and meanwhile the kid is stuck in limbo. But really I don’t think DC cares about those cases. The problem is middle class people with kids living in MD or VA. My guess is mostly MD?[/quote]

It's been made abundantly clear on this thread -- and reinforced by today's news -- that DCPS has no desire to address the problem. The current rules are not designed to solve the problem, but to create obstacles to it being solved. Yes, there will always be edge cases that require judgment. But that's not 40% of the kids at Ellington. [/quote]

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