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School Wants 4 Proofs Of Address; Parents Ignoring Boundary Rules

Posted on: Thursday, 4 August 2005, 18:00 CDT

James Monroe Middle School is trying to make it a lot harder for students living outside its boundaries to enroll in its overcrowded classrooms this year.

Checks put in place there and in five other overcrowded middle and high schools might also make enrollment difficult for students claiming to live with other families.

Monroe principal Vernon Martinez said Friday that his school projects an enrollment of 1,400 students this year, and he suspects that some of them should be going to other schools.

"We've just got too many kids here," Martinez said. "We're trying to make sure all the students who are here are supposed to be here."

Martinez is asking parents to bring four forms of residence identification when enrolling students for the fall semester next week, instead of the usual one or two forms. He said the school might even conduct home visits to determine if a student lives within its boundaries.

APS requires proof of residence at registration but doesn't specify what kind or how much.

Martinez said the school will make exceptions and accept fewer than four proofs of address if the documentation can be verified as authentic.

"I feel that the majority of students and parents who are supposed to come to James Monroe will provide us with the documentation" that proves they live where they say they do, Martinez said.

Last year, the school found several students with false documents, he said, but often students have been allowed to remain through the end of the school year.

"The only time you can really try to attempt to stop it is on the front end of registration," Martinez said.

The changes came about because Monroe is participating in a pilot program with Albuquerque Public Schools to help identify students who aren't living with their parents and might need services, such as the free lunch program, counseling, legal services or school supplies.

Participating schools include Monroe, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Desert Ridge middle schools and Cibola and West Mesa high schools.

Those schools were chosen because they don't accept transfer students, so such students would not have to be taken into consideration for the study.

Students who live with other family members now have a form to fill out. Under the new rules at those six schools, students living with other families must provide proof they are living with a guardian as well as three forms of proof of residency from that household.

While the pilot program is directed at only those students living with other families, Monroe is taking it a step further by requiring such documentation from all students.

APS Student Success Administrator Susan Stanojevic said the pilot program might help filter out nonresident students at the other schools.

Parents are circumventing the transfer process by claiming residence in a school boundary that's not their own, and children are getting into schools so crowded that even legal transfers are not permitted, Stanojevic said.

"By identifying those that have a hardship situation, we can really help those who need the assistance and guide the transfer," Stanojevic said.

The pilot came out of Desert Ridge Middle School, which is in the far Northeast Heights and is over its capacity. Stanojevic says parents often tell on other parents, and school employees suspect parents of falsifying lease agreements. They knew of one Rio Rancho family that dropped children off each day, yet claimed to live in the neighborhood.

"They are in a school that's highly desirable," she said. "People are not going to go through the transfer process and not get accepted. They are going to try to find other methods."

She said that, while parents understandably want to enroll children in "what they deem to be the best schools, that in itself causes us some overcrowding issues."

At Monroe, 50 students last year said they lived in homes with relatives other than their parents. Martinez said it's possible some of those parents lied.

He said students claiming to be living with a relative within attendance boundaries have sometimes turned out to be living with their parents somewhere else. It usually comes to light when students are frequently late for school because they don't live in the neighborhood, or the post office returns mail sent to a fake address.

He said 50 students in the wrong school fill two classrooms.

The new protocol will allow the principal to send school resource officers to a student's listed address to confirm residence.

"We are not trying to keep kids out of school," Stanojevic said. "We are trying to keep them in the correct boundaries. Hopefully, this will help us get a real feel for where our overcrowding is."

Source: Albuquerque Journal

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