School districts pursue parents who cross the line

Parents who fake a residence in a district to get a child into a better school or on a better sports team are facing a growing legal backlash that threatens fines, restitution, and even jail.

They’re called boundary jumpers: parents who falsely claim to live in a certain place to get their child into a better school. Many consider it an honorable lie. But for the school districts that create attendance zones to reflect neighborhoods, prevent overcrowding, serve students lawfully in their jurisdiction, and bring consistency and fairness, it is not a victimless fib. When people seek to beat the system, the deception has administrative, financial, and legal consequences.

Increasingly school officials are striking back. They are socking boundary jumpers with a bill for services, charging them with a crime, or taking other action to deter those who do not belong. In an era of economic scarcity, the stakes are magnified. A superior public education is viewed as a surefire way to prevent poverty and despair. That reality, coupled with the growing chasm between privileged and poor, almost guarantees the clash over bright futures and better placement will continue.

School systems are commonly organized by attendance boundaries. Students who live in a certain area are assigned to specific schools. The problem begins when a student’s home school is not perceived as offering a quality education. Most frequently, the reason for boundary jumping is academic, but sometimes parents cheat to get their children onto a preferred sports team. Even affluent parents might believe having a better coach or teammates could produce a college scholarship or other benefits. The phenomenon, therefore, is not always about fleeing a bad school in a bad neighborhood.

Educating out-of-boundary students puts an unfair fiscal burden on local taxpayers.

Tricks of the trade

Boundary jumpers come in two main forms: interdistrict and intradistrict — they are treated the same in the eyes of the law. In the first, parents exit their home school district and pretend to live in the preferred locale. In the second, parents covet another school in their own district and falsify address records to qualify for admission.

Among the common gambits parents employ: using a friend or relative’s address, renting an apartment in the preferred spot and portraying that as the primary residence, transferring guardianship of the student to someone in the favored location, or simply lying.

Perhaps the most notorious legal case involved Kelly Williams-Bolar of Akron, Ohio. She was convicted of two felonies in 2011 after she used her father’s residence to illegally enroll her two daughters in a neighboring school district. Williams-Bolar was charged with criminal grand theft and felony tampering with records. The first count referred to the $30,000 that Copley-Fairlawn City Schools spent to educate her  children for two years. The second charge was for lying on an affidavit about her address.

The 40-year-old single mom served nine days in jail, placed on two years’ probation, ordered to submit to random drug tests, pay restitution, and required to perform 80 hours of community service.

Williams-Bolar, a special education aide in the Akron school district who was also studying to be a teacher, became a hero to some. An online petition calling for her pardon gained more than 180,000 signatures, and the governor eventually reduced Williams-Bolar’s convictions from felonies to misdemeanors.

She is not the only educator ensnared by the lure of boundary jumping. Madelyn Montanez, a New York City teacher who lived outside the city, was fired after she fraudulently enrolled her son in the city’s schools. The New York Appellate Division court in 2013 upheld the district’s decision, saying Montanez could be lawfully terminated despite the fact that she had an unblemished teaching record and offered to pay back the money.

Crime and punishment

Illegal jumping has a higher cost still. Five states — Arkansas, Illinois, Michigan, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania — and the District of Columbia have laws that impose criminal penalties for boundary jumping.

Palm Beach County Schools in Florida has cracked down on perpetrators for several years. Starting in 2008, the district imposed a stricter address verification policy, set up a tip line, and even hired an experienced demographer at a salary of $69,000 to track down violators and oversee implementation of the new approach. The initial push identified 176 students in 54 schools as potential boundary jumpers. In Palm Beach, violators can be convicted of perjury, a third-degree felony, and face a potential five-year prison sentence. Boundary jumping is a pretty clear-cut offense, so a legal victory for the parent is highly unlikely. I know of no court decision in which the judge sided with a parent, no matter how compelling the contrast between the home district and the coveted district.

In November 2013, Northwestern High School in Prince George’s County, Md., told seniors they would need to prove residency or be forced to withdraw from school. Families needed to produce a lease or mortgage statement, a utility bill, or other proof that they lived where they claimed to live.

The reason for boundary jumping is usually academic, but sometimes parents cheat to get their children on to a preferred sports team.

Meanwhile, in Buffalo, N.Y., the school board in November 2013 asked its attorney to survey principals to determine how many suburban students might be surreptitiously attending Buffalo city schools. The district revised the application for the coming 2014-15 academic year to require parents to certify that they live within city limits. Other changes might also be in the offing.

For school districts nationwide, the economics are clear. Educating out-of-boundary students puts an unfair fiscal burden on local taxpayers. Boundary jumpers cost school districts in multiple ways, including the number of teachers they must hire, educational supplies they buy, transportation, wear and tear on the building, field trip costs, inflated class sizes, and trailer purchases.

Sometimes out-of-area students are legitimately in a school other than the one they’re assigned to attend. Magnet schools and special admission academies are two examples. In addition, some districts offer limited choice, which permits open enrollment for certain schools or full choice where all schools are available. The federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act also allows homeless students to remain in their original school rather than change schools frequently, but the priority there is to maintain educational stability.

Some districts also market themselves as private school alternatives and allow parents to pay tuition to enroll a child. For example, the Blind Brook-Rye Union Free School District in New York charges parents $21,500 a year tuition for middle and high school students. It uses direct mailings to market over a 15-mile radius outside its attendance zone. On the opposite coast, the Riverdale School District in Portland, Ore., has charged $11,900 for a year of high school, close to double what the state provides to educate a student. Last year, 120 students paid that tuition, making up 20% of its $6.5-million budget (Jacobs, 2013).

The search for solutions

For those who choose to boundary jump, however, I see at least one big problem aside from illegality: Students become an accomplice to the lie. Parents may not fully appreciate the pressure children feel when they’re required to perpetuate the falsehood daily. Plus, the moral lesson is that if you can’t win honestly, faking is the way to go. That “end justifies the means” approach fails to instill in young people the proper respect for our nation’s treasured rule of law.

Schools might also try a legal approach by beefing up enforcement, pursuing criminal sanctions, hiring private investigators to trail families, and changing school policies. But that strategy is expensive and time-consuming. It also creates a distraction from the main focus of continuously improving educational quality.

The ultimate solution lies with superintendents, principals, and teachers. It involves working to achieve the long-elusive goal of providing an excellent public education everywhere, regardless of neighborhood or jurisdictional lines. Some parents might still seek an exit ticket for athletic glory. But if academic opportunities are equal, then well-meaning parents can breathe a sigh of relief. Until then, unfortunately, some parents will continue to try to get their children into the best schools regardless of the difficulty or outcome.

Reference

Jacobs, P. (2013). Public schools around the country are charging outrageous tuition to compete with private schools. Business Insider. www.businessinsider.com/public-school-outrageous-tuition-compete-private-schools-2013-7

Citation: Darden, E.C. (2014). Ed law: School districts pursue parents who cross the line. Phi Delta Kappan, 95 (6), 68-69.