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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]To me, the institutional failure and obvious lack of interest by DCPS in dealing with this problem seems like the problem to attack.

http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/06/d-c-not-interested-in-stopping-maryland-fraudsters-stealing-its-schools/

Arguing about this on a message board is not productive.  So, given that OSSE seems to routinely ignore the tips that parents submit, what remedies are available to parents?  Is a class action lawsuit a possibility?  How do such things work?

[/quote]

OSSE released a report last year showing that they responded to almost all of the tips. Not sure where the opposite view is coming from. [/quote]

So you didn't read the linked article.  If you had, you'd see exactly where the opposite view is coming from.  That's OK, I can summarize for you.  The big issues I took from the article:

1. [b]The online reporting mechanism is designed to fail[/b], apparently quite purposefully, by asking a series of questions that people reporting fraud could not possibly know the answer to, such as the address used to verify residency and "LEA Name", whatever that is.

2. [b]OSSE does not seem to record and report on all incoming tips.[/b]  From the article: [quote]Referring to phone tips, she [a tip line operator DCNF interviewed] said “we get them every day” — in addition to any online submissions — yet in a June 2015 report, the OSSE reported only 88 leads in the 2014-15 school year.  That number included any tips from “OSSE residency fraud staff” and “partner agencies,” indicating that the school bureaucracy produced few leads on its own and simply looked into cases when parents had taken it upon themselves to do the legwork.
http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/06/d-c-not-interested-in-stopping-maryland-fraudsters-stealing-its-schools/#ixzz4E2lgIGxa
[/quote]  This strongly suggests to me that OSSE is not following up on tips.

3. [b]Tips do not result in sanctions[/b], which may be right, but the numbers suggest a problem to me.  From the article:  [quote]Of the 88 tips, it imposed sanctions on only one family, and only then because the parent didn’t bother to take advantage of an appeals process. The parent, who had two children in a school, was fined $15,000 — less than the cost of one year for one child — but only $3,000 has been collected.  The prior year, the government proved five cases out of 38 tips — 13 percent, compared to the most recent year’s 1 percent — and tried to impose retroactive tuition, but never collected most of the money.http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/06/d-c-not-interested-in-stopping-maryland-fraudsters-stealing-its-schools/#ixzz4E2mqQDTq[/quote]

4.  [b]At least one charter school seems to be pretty openly flouting residency requirements[/b].  From the article:  [quote]In 2014, the Excel Academy Public Charter School administrator in charge of enrollment, Lela Johnson, admitted enrolling her daughter at the school for three years despite living in Maryland. After the admission, Johnson received a new job at the school — Executive Principal.  An outside auditor found that only 196 of the school’s 618 students had proper residency documentation. Some students provided documents showing that their parents lived and paid taxes in Maryland, and the school accepted them anyway, the Washington Post reported. http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/06/d-c-not-interested-in-stopping-maryland-fraudsters-stealing-its-schools/#ixzz4E2nLAPfo[/quote]

So, with that red herring dealt with, I ask again: what can we as parents do, given that OSSE seems complicit in this fraud?[/quote]

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