At the January 22, 2018 Board of Education meeting, the Board approved a one-year pilot to streamline residency verification for families returning for the upcoming 2018-19 school year.
At the direction of the Board and Board Policy 7:60 Residency, District 64 began requiring annual verification of residency of all students, both new and returning, beginning with the 2015-16 school year. Families are required to submit documentation as part of this process, which must be reviewed and verified by D64 staff.
Chief School Business Official Luann Kolstad reported to the Board that based on the District's experience each year and software improvements in the Infosnap online registration system, D64 has streamlined its method of collecting documents. She noted that proving residency on an annual basis, however, continues to be burdensome to the District’s families and is very labor intensive for building as well as District staff. It has required the hiring of additional help each of the last two summers so that the registration/residency verification process could be completed by the time school commences in August.
CSBO Kolstad affirmed that student residency remains a high priority for District 64. She reported that through detailed residency reviews and surveillance, the District has identified and removed 24 non-resident students enrolled in the District’s schools since the 2015-16 school year. In addition, in excess of 10 non-resident students were identified over the last two school years during the registration process and prevented from enrolling at all.
CSBO Kolstad reported that currently, if the District suspects an issue with a student’s residency, staff will run a detailed background check using Clear, which is a software product used by other governmental agencies and neighboring school districts including Maine Township High School District 207, to obtain additional information on an individual. Clear aggregates public records pulled from trusted, current sources.She noted that District 64 uses this software to verify an individual’s residence when questions have arisen prior to turning the case over to a private investigator.
Beginning with the 2018-19 school year registration, the Board approved a new process to verifying student residency. "The new process aims to save time for staff and not be an undue burden on our returning families in terms of providing paperwork, yet will still provide a thorough evaluation of a student’s residency," CSBO Kolstad pointed out.
The new process will:
- Use the Clear Batch program to screen all families prior to the annual Infosnap registration. Families that pass the screening will not be required to provide residency paperwork during annual registration via Infosnap beginning April 23.
- All new families to the District and families that do not pass the Clear screening will still be required to provide all requested documents to prove residency for the 2018-19 school year.
- Families with leases that expire prior to the start of the new school year will be required to provide a new lease in order to complete their registration process.
CSBO Kolstad reported that District 207 used the Clear Batch processing during their 2017-18 registration process and had a very positive outcome in terms of the program identifying potential out-of-district students/families. She noted that the annual cost to District 64 is $2,400 for 10,000 inputs, which is less than the cost of hiring additional summer help this past summer ($6,500). She pointed out that using this program to screen all families may also uncover additional non-resident students/families currently in the District that provided false information during the 2017-18 registration process. Although physical documentation must be provided by newly enrolling families, CSBO Kolstad recommended that the District also run all new families through the Clear Batch process prior to school beginning in August of each year.
As a reminder, per Board Policy 7:60, a student must reside and sleep in a residence within District 64 on a permanent basis, not just during the school week or a few days during the week for the purposes of securing an education in District 64 or babysitting.
"Our hope is that all tax paying residents of Park Ridge-Niles realize that non-resident students cost their school district approximately $16,000 per student to educate annually, and will continue to come forward with any information they hear or witness regarding a possible residency violation. Information can be turned into my office anonymously on any potential cases," CSBO Kolstad stated.