Boundary Crossings: A Matter of Residency - inter-school district student enrollment

School Administrator, Nov, 2000 by Kimberly Reeves

Wiegand has no regrets. A civil case against parents, such as a lawsuit seeking back tuition, is a slap on the hand. A criminal procedure dissuades parents from committing the same crime again, he says.

"People say, 'I'm only doing this for the benefit of my child,' but you could use the same principle to walk into Nordstrom's and steal clothes off the rack," Wiegand adds. "It's the same kind of dishonesty."

Euclid is an inner-ring suburb of Cleveland, a middle-class blue-collar community with 6,200 students. The school system worked directly with city leaders to craft the ordinance that could be used to take parents to court, says Patrick Newkirk, the district's residency compliance officer.

"We've utilized the ordinance, I would say, on a dozen occasions over the last three years," says Newkirk, a former captain in the Euclid police department in charge of criminal investigations. "This is specifically intended for those parents who still resisted our efforts, even after they were identified."

The school district also pursues tuition claims against the parents in small claims court, at roughly $600 per month. Reaction from the community has been strong on both sides, says Newkirk, but the program is also successful.

"The investigations have allowed us to isolate the district for those parents who truly live here and eliminate those who are involved in so-called district jumping," Newkirk says. "We've probably discovered 100 students in the last three years, and that's a cost that's borne by the taxpayers."

Strain on Children

Marilyn Loushin-Miller, superintendent of the Hillsborough City Elementary School District outside of San Francisco, says the cost of border hopping is emotional, as well as financial. Her tiny district of 1,400 students in kindergarten through 8th grade deals with 40 or so students each year whose parents illegally enroll them in the high-achieving school system. The person who suffers the most when that happens is the child, not the parent, she says.

"When a child, any child, comes into a classroom he's viewed as a co-equal member of that class," Loushin-Miller says. "If a child is removed, every one of the children in that classroom suffers. It's a terrible situation."

The emotional strain of ripping young children from their teacher and friends, combined with bulging school facilities under California's lower student-to-teacher ratios, forced LoushinMiller to come up with another option for the district.

A registrar to sort the initial enrollment process was added last year to the Hillsborough staff. Eighty or so children whose grandparents live in the Hillsborough district are still allowed to attend classes, but even that now is limited by the classroom space Loushin-Miller has available on her four campuses.

"We had to create another system that prevented this from happening to children," Loushin-Miller says. "Adults were making decisions about children, and the adults don't understand the consequences of their actions."

The process of allowing transfers between schools in a district can mean big headaches for the school system. The District of Columbia Public Schools face daunting interest in its student transfers program each year. Assistant Superintendent Ralph Neal, who oversees the program, says 5,000 students applied this year for transfers between schools within the 71,000-student district in the one-month window the district established for applications.