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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=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. [/quote]

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"?[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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