Proving their point, or just their address

Mark Gleason

This week we asked our parent panelists: To combat overcrowding at

Newport Coast school, district officials have instituted a policy

requiring proof that students live within the boundaries of the

elementary school they attend. Do you think the district should apply

that policy to all schools in the district?

The school district is not instituting any new policies. It is

simply trying to better enforce an existing policy. That seems

entirely reasonable to me. If it helps eliminate some overcrowding by

weeding out some people who are gaming the system, that’s also quite

reasonable.

We have a well-used open enrollment policy in the Newport-Mesa

Unified School District. Many kids in my neighborhood have gone to

schools outside of their home area. California state law mandates

open enrollment outside of one’s home district, and I know Costa Mesa

kids who attend Edison High School in the Huntington Beach Union High

School District. It takes planning, paperwork and effort to do either

an inter- or intra- district school switch, but the rules are clear,

and it’s doable.

Generally, you can’t transfer to an already full or overcrowded

school, so not everybody can always go where they want. Lotteries are

held for available spaces if there are more transfer-seekers than

slots at a given school.

One tried and true way to get around all the hassle of paperwork,

planning and lotteries is to use somebody else’s address. That’s

obviously wrong, illegal and unfair to those who use the system

legitimately, but it happens. Being asked for more than a utility

bill should not be a problem for any legitimate resident.

Newport Coast Elementary is not currently overcrowded, so

legitimate transfer candidates have a fair shot at getting in, at

least until 2010, when the school is projected to have more students

than space.

The really thorny issue at the recent meeting was not proving

residence, but the fact the district may need to redraw boundaries to

shift students to schools which have more capacity. Pretty much

everybody hates that idea, since everything from your home’s value to

your kid’s future depends at least in part on what school is in your

home area. District officials are also loathe to mess with the

boundaries because they know how much flack they’ll face, even when

there is a sound economic case.

All this gets easier if all the schools in the district provide

the same level and quality of education. Newport-Mesa Unified really

isn’t a very big district, so expecting academic parity isn’t asking

too much. I know we’re working on it and progress is being made, but

as I noted last week, it’s excruciatingly slow.

If this idea is applied in Newport Coast, then it should be

applied districtwide. As the current overcrowding at Newport Coast

shows, the old method of verifying residency no longer works to

determine a true student enrollment in a school zone. Some may have

used bogus addresses to get their children into a school, as is true

in other parts of the district. A districtwide policy would eliminate

any confusion and deception.

When possible and to prevent a bureaucratic nightmare, the

district might consider a grace or amnesty period to allow students

to continue at their current schools. But beginning immediately,

attendance officers should require parents of new students to prove

residency with a notarized utility bill, house or rent receipt and a

phone bill.

The school district was built on the neighborhood school concept,

and our cities are stronger when kids go to neighborhood schools. In

most cases, kids can walk to school and get more exercise. The school

becomes a hub of the neighborhood, where neighbors become friends and

work together to improve the school better.

If parents believe their neighborhood school is inferior, they

have options: move to a different zone, apply for a transfer, go to

private school, transfer out of the district or teach their children

at home.

Homeland security issues necessitate student records be accurate

in case of a national emergency. Parents who use someone else’s

address to get their child into a “better” school are setting

themselves up for a bigger problem if the school office has incorrect

information.

A districtwide policy would send a message to those from other

districts who also lie about residency to put their kids in a

Newport-Mesa school. When a Santa Ana parent uses a Costa Mesa or

Newport address, the piece of the education pie has to be divided up

into smaller portions. Newport-Mesa students, educated with local tax

dollars, get the short end when parents from other districts are

dishonest.

For years, the district has soft pedaled residency verification at

enrollment time. It’s time for taxpayers to ask the district to write

a policy that is good for the entire district, not just for Newport

Coast.