Funny, I thought public education was supposed to be "free." What's the deal with that economic disparity-thing anyway? What I know for sure is that if all things were equal in this country, families and their students would not feel compelled to sneak to wealthier districts in order to get educated.
Perhaps these parents should be rewarded for actually sending their kids to school, snd congratulate them further for not having their children get into trouble. Now there's a thought...
What do you think?
January 13, 2008
SCHOOLS
On the Lookout for Out-of-District Students
By DEBRA NUSSBAUM
AT 8 o’clock one morning, Juanita Ludwig and Vincent Constantino, employees of Clifton Public Schools, are knocking on the door at a house to check a tip. Someone had said a Clifton elementary school student did not really live there and was sneaking in from another district.
Ms. Ludwig, the supervisor of counseling and student services, explains to the parent who answers the door that the district must check to see that the child lives there most of the time. “We made sure there were age-appropriate toys for an 8-year-old child,” she said. “We explain to the parents that the child must stay at the house at least four nights a week.”
“They weren’t upset,” Ms. Ludwig said. “A majority of people understand.”
This time, Ms. Ludwig and Mr. Constantino, the district’s domicile investigator, concluded that the student lived there full time. But that is often not the case.
In the 2006-7 school year, the Clifton district, which has 10,500 students, investigated 625 reports of students illegally attending its schools; it caught 62 last year and 59 the year before. Those students cost the district hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Clifton is hardly the only district searching for students sneaking into its schools. While the State Department of Education does not keep statistics, administrators in suburban districts report that hundreds of tips are received and checked every year.
And there are many ways to find students who don’t belong. Bounties, detectives, stakeouts with cameras, and hot lines that receive tips from anonymous callers are tools that some school districts use to combat the perennial problem of illegally enrolled students.
Those who are caught can suffer consequences: For example, in Ewing, 13 families were asked to remove their children from its schools last year when attendance officers investigated and found the families did not live in the Mercer County community.
There is strong anecdotal evidence that families, including some from Pennsylvania and New York, try to sneak into some of the state’s top suburban districts, said Richard Vespucci, a Department of Education spokesman.
“It’s been an issue on again and off again,” he said. “It’s a bigger issue when the economic climate is weaker. It’s climates like this where property taxes are a real issue and anyone spending public funds wants to show where they are spending the money.”
Districts combat the problems in various ways. Clifton, for example, offers a $300 bounty to anyone reporting a student who turns out to be attending a district school illegally; it has paid once so far this school year, once last year and twice the year before. Students are required to reregister in certain grades in some districts, and attendance officers go to students’ homes to verify they live there.
School administrators say taxpayers demand the accountability. With the average per-pupil cost at about $12,000, taxpayers want to be assured that a student’s “permanent home is located within the school district,” Mr. Vespucci said.
In Cherry Hill, where about 400 such cases are investigated each year, the district got a tip a few years ago from a woman who lived in another South Jersey town. The woman said a fellow employee was bragging about sneaking her child into the Cherry Hill school district, said Don Bart, director of support operations for the district, which has almost 12,000 students.
The district’s full-time attendance officer checked it out, and the student was asked to leave the district. “We are just enforcing the law,” Mr. Bart said.
Under state law, a student a student may legally attend the school in the district where he or she resides the majority of the time. Out-of-district students are required to pay tuition.
Three years ago, the Clark Public School District hired a retired police officer to investigate cases of illegal students. The investigator has parked outside students’ homes to see if they come out in the morning and checked documents like licenses and car registrations.
“The key word here is domicile,” Superintendent Vito Gagliardi said. “The child must live in the house as a primary residence.”
Dr. Gagliardi said the concern is not only for taxpayers, but also for a student who has to lie to teachers and classmates. “In addition to protecting the tax dollar, this is unfair to the child,” he said. Students whose parents take them to districts outside the one they live in have to be careful what they say, and it can be uncomfortable when someone wants to go to their house, he said.
In some cases in Clifton, investigators have followed buses or sat outside homes at 6:30 a.m. in an effort to see if students really live in the district, said Ms. Ludwig. The district also requires three proofs of residency. “We are very vigilant,” said Ira E. Oustatcher, assistant superintendent.
With pressure on districts to reduce class size and stretch dollars, many taxpayers do not have patience for families sneaking into a district, be it for better schools, safety or convenience.
“The school districts are not being coldhearted,” said Frank Belluscio, a spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association. “There is a financial burden on them, and they have limited resources. This is painful for schools, but it’s what the law says. It’s been a nagging problem and fairly consistent over the years.”
Ewing has one full-time attendance officer and four part-time officers, said Raymond Broach, the school superintendent. “It’s a pretty steady issue,” he said. Students have been caught coming in from Bristol and Morrisville, Pa., across the Delaware River.
In Teaneck, Al Schulz, a retired police detective, is attendance officer. Sometimes, he watches to see if students are coming over the George Washington Bridge from New York, said David Bicofsky, the district spokesman.
“You are talking $10,000 to $11,000 a year to educate a student,” he said. “You have to be vigilant for your taxpayers.”
