Metro Atlanta area education leaders are cracking down on students who illegally cross district lines to attend other schools — combing through documents, questioning parents and surveilling students to see where they live, in an effort to stem millions of dollars in revenue loss.
Enrollment fraud, a growing practice that has districts putting more resources into policing it, involves students and parents lying about where they live. Some do it to attend higher-performing schools, while others want to play in successful high school athletic programs outside their attendance zones.
It costs Georgia school systems roughly $8,000 to $13,000 to educate each student. Local property taxes supply part of that cost, but districts don’t get that property-tax revenue for students who actually live elsewhere. Atlanta Public Schools pegs the cost to taxpayers for students who reside outside the city of Atlanta, for example, at $11,379.
The city of Decatur’s school board recently approved hiring a full-time staff member to monitor enrollment fraud, with officials investigating 120 to 160 students per year suspected of lying about their residency to attend the fast-growing, high-performing school system. About 30 are asked to leave each year. However, officials believe a lot more are likely to be attending illegally.
To find out more about what's happening in other metro Atlanta school districts, check out MyAjc.com
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