Picture this: You’re driving your child to school and notice a car is following you. You recognize the car because you’ve seen it outside your home before.
Then, you find out the person following you is a private investigator hired by a school district to verify you live within the district’s boundaries.
Sounds crazy but that’s exactly what happened to one family in North County.
Grab your cafecito. Here’s what you need to know to start your week.
Spying on Students
Education reporter Jakob McWhinney reports that Del Mar Unified School District hired private investigators to spy on a family.
The school district suspected the family was committing residency fraud. In other words, lying about living within the boundaries of the district.
Jakob reports that the family caught on to the surveillance and called the police to report they were being stalked. Police officers intervened and detained the PI for being on school property with a gun. (The school district wasn’t aware the agency allowed their employees to carry weapons.)
Officials with the school district wouldn’t tell us if the investigation confirmed the family was lying about where they lived. But they did say they now conduct residency verification investigations in-house.
Behind Voice: When Schools Get Suspicious
I asked Jakob a few questions about his story. Here’s what he had to say.
Jakob, this story is nuts. Why would a school district do this? Don’t they get money based on enrollment?
It is pretty crazy! But it’s actually not all that uncommon. Stories like this have stirred up controversy in districts all over the place. Oftentimes, it’s done to save districts the cost of educating kids from other areas.
You’re right, after the adoption of the Local Control Funding Formula more than a decade ago, most California school districts got funded based on average daily attendance, which is sort of a proxy for enrollment. That means the more students that attend their schools, the more money the state gives them to educate children.
Some wealthy districts, though, like Del Mar, would have lost money from the new formula. So, the state gave them a carve-out that allowed them to continue to get funded the old-fashioned way — property taxes. So, these districts aren’t dependent on getting butts in seats to bring in the dough.
Do you have a sense of what triggers this kind of investigation into families?
They can be triggered for all sorts of reasons.
Years ago, there were some great stories about school districts in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia utilizing these tactics, where parents called into tip lines to snitch on families they suspected were flouting residency boundaries. In those stories, there was often a racialized component to the surveillance and investigations. Put simply, Black kids attending more ritzy suburban schools were often targeted by these sorts of investigations.
Unfortunately, we can’t say for certain what sparked this particular investigation.
Do you suspect that other school districts in San Diego do this?
This is also hard to know for sure, but I’ll take an educated guess and say: almost certainly.
The state of education is unequal, and, for better or worse, some families are desperate to get their kids into schools or districts they perceive to be “better.” And lying about where you live to get into a different school, which is called residency fraud, is a crime in California. Though it’s important to point out that the district refused to say whether they found this family was lying about where they lived.
So, especially for districts that don’t rely on enrollment for funding, there’s a financial incentive to boot some kids out.
Want to share a tip with Jakob? You can email him at jakob.mcwhinney@voiceofsandiego.org.
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More Chisme to Start Your Week
- Mayor Todd Gloria is proposing to close more than 30 public restrooms to save the city of San Diego money.
- South County reporter Jim Hinch profiled Chula Vista’s mayor, John McCann, who is now in a heated battle for re-election. It’s a great weekend read.