Anonymous wrote:So it looks like OSSE has hired F.S. Taylor & Associates, PC (FSTA) to conduct an enrollment audit of public and charter schools this year, within the next days that is. In this case, an external auditor will have a much grater incentive to uncover discrepancies than either the schools or government authorities have. Should be interesting.

There has always been an external enrollment auditor hired by OSSE. F.S. Taylor is just a new vendor. It used to be Thompson Cobb Bazillio.

The auditors review the files that the schools have on hand, verify the documentation and will also count kids to check for discrepancies. Schools do not get paid for students if they cannot verify residency for the students.

The issue is that DC requires documentation that is simply too easily manufactured by non-residents who want to enroll their students in a DC public or public charter school. As a PP wrote, "proof of residency is a joke."

I do believe that something can be done. Requiring documentation that is government produced or government-verified (tax records, pay stub showing DC withholding, etc) combined with charging non-residents who are caught the full amount of tuition would make a difference. Plus home visits for anyone using the "other primary caregiver" status when verifying residency. Currently DC will allow a person to "prove" they are the "primary caregiver" by just signing a statement that says so.

Forgive me if I sound naive, but I don't think it should be that hard to find out-of-state scofflaws. Last month I read an article in the NY Times about how a Hartford, CT district was doing it. Someone, a parent perhaps?, reported that they suspected that a student didn't live in the school district after spotting NY plates when the student was dropped off. A school official went to the student's address of record to check. Done. That's it. Why can't DC do that?

Anonymous wrote:I'm guessing, though, that there's a law against using tax data for any non-tax purpose.

Also, they're actually getting at that be requiring the enrolling family to submit a paystub on which withheld DC taxes are indicated. Not saying that's less time consuming than a little data mining but it's covered in the process. And so is the submission of residency-related documentation for welfare recipients someone else mentioned. The rules aren't the problem. Their enforcement is and the fact that there are ways to associate such data with a student who actually really doesn't live in DC and the fact that it's, at the end of the day, more expensive to catch those harder to spot cases and to just accept some deadweight loss here.
But the low-hanging fruit, stemming from poor enforcement at the school's front desk or from incentives to boost enrollments and look the other way, should be gone after and I trust a third party to do that better.

To the PP who mentioned that a VA license plate was flagged but then not investigated because you were just using a rental car and truly do live in DC, I'd actually say that may be a proof the system is working. License plates are a decent flag but by no means are they a valid indicator of residency. They hopefully went into your files and looked at the residency requirements you submitted and decided there is indeed no problem.

Anonymous wrote:this is a question, and sorry in advance if it is very stupid, I do not really know how things work (it must be otherwise it would have been used I guess). we live in DC and we pay taxes in DC. thus the DC government must have somewhere a list of people who pay taxes here (and thus are DC resident). should an application to DCPS simply be crossed checked with this dabase?

if parents/guardian are not in the DC Tax database because they do not work, I assume they get some kind of public assistance, in that case they should still be in some DC government database. they could be asked to provide copies of driver's license and car registration.

Well, after I lost my job, I no longer paid DC taxes. I got unemployment benefits, but because my job had been located in Maryland, these benefits were paid by Maryland rather than DC. My husband lived with me & continued to pay DC taxes, but if we'd been divorced, or if he wasn't the father to my children, our family would have been flagged as violators.

That said, a cross-check with DC income tax databases does sound like a good place to start, and I would have been happy to invite DCPS school inspectors for a quick peek at my children's bedroom. I'm guessing, though, that there's a law against using tax data for any non-tax purpose.

this is a question, and sorry in advance if it is very stupid, I do not really know how things work (it must be otherwise it would have been used I guess). we live in DC and we pay taxes in DC. thus the DC government must have somewhere a list of people who pay taxes here (and thus are DC resident). should an application to DCPS simply be crossed checked with this dabase?

if parents/guardian are not in the DC Tax database because they do not work, I assume they get some kind of public assistance, in that case they should still be in some DC government database. they could be asked to provide copies of driver's license and car registration.

I have to agree with some of the earlier posters. We have so many layers of bureaucracy that it is foolishness. I will say it again, the only division that is working well at DCPS is the Oooops Division. What is the punishment if caught? School enrollment cheats and tax cheats are two different elements. Absolutely, no one has to go to that extreme in buying a condo to ensure placement in a good school in DC.

I had to drive a rental car for a week and also drop my kid off at her school. The rumor mill began that I have move to VA and all because I had VA tags on a rental car. Inquiry yes, investigation no.

If you don't live In-boundary and you send your kid(s) there, yes, it is cheating if you didn't get I through the OOB system. That is the case whether your actual home is in DC or the burbs. I think often it's a small condo so kids wouldn't fit in there anyway (easily). Friends in PG County told me they were thinking of renting or buying a studio in DC in a good school district to send their kids to school in DC.

Cheate

Go back to Oakton, sweetie.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So it looks like OSSE has hired F.S. Taylor & Associates, PC (FSTA) to conduct an enrollment audit of public and charter schools this year, within the next days that is. In this case, an external auditor will have a much grater incentive to uncover discrepancies than either the schools or government authorities have. Should be interesting.

It's about time. DC taxpayers have been footing the bill for too many non-resident students for too long.

I am confused. People try to sneak INTO D.C. schools? I thought people avoided D.C. schools like the plague?

maybe, but based on previous threads, sounds like there are still some address cheaters at janney, just not the pg county type, but the multiple house owning lawyer type using their rental property addresses.

I know one! Started a thread about it last month. Parent uses an address inbounds to get kid into preK, though she doesn't reside at that address anymore. Then moves kid to a private school when preK is complete. Repeat 2013-2014, you watch.

Anonymous wrote:^ The multiple home owner types are the problem? In what sense? They pay both DC income and property tax, the latter not just on one home but on more than one. If parents are paying tax on a property as their primary residence, and no children but their own are attending a school using this address, in what sense are they cheating? Arguably, they're simply paying through the nose for the right to send their kids to IB schools in particular districts. DCPS needs as many high-SES parents as it can find to support public schools, leading me to hope that they continue to leave the landlord "cheaters" (make that players and payers) alone. By all means, check public property tax records against other documentation for proof of residency, and leave it at that.

sure didn't take long to weed out one of the janney cheat's... the high-ses argument is ridiculous, since probably every new in-bound kid meets that criteria in a school like janney, so instead of overcrowding the few good schools, those kids school really be attending their neighborhood school.

Very easy to cheat the property records check. Create lease with owner of record. Done.

Don't agree with PP's theory to leave the "other" cheaters alone. If you are renting out your ward 3 house and rent covers PITI (incl taxes), there is no burden. You don't get to bypass system because you have the ability to have a rental home in a good ward. The law is the law, you get preference for your current IB school, not your "could-be, once-was, now makes rental income" rental house.

^ The multiple home owner types are the problem? In what sense? They pay both DC income and property tax, the latter not just on one home but on more than one. If parents are paying tax on a property as their primary residence, and no children but their own are attending a school using this address, in what sense are they cheating? Arguably, they're simply paying through the nose for the right to send their kids to IB schools in particular districts. DCPS needs as many high-SES parents as it can find to support public schools, leading me to hope that they continue to leave the landlord "cheaters" (make that players and payers) alone. By all means, check public property tax records against other documentation for proof of residency, and leave it at that.

Wait. Wasnt osse supposed to set up a hotline for reportlng suspected cheats? And didn't osse already do an audit and study on special ed out of state families?

Seriously. How hard would it be to add the reporting function to 311? At least it would give some sense of the scale of the problem.

What is the point of having osse and deputy mayor for education?