US schools fight `boundary hoppers’
By Jane Han
korea times
DALLAS — As back-to-school season arrives in the United States, school districts popular among Koreans are on high alert as authorities start to clamp down on “boundary hopping,” an illegal trick where parents fake home addresses to send their children to better schools.
Public school officials of competitive districts in California, New York, New Jersey, Virginia and Maryland are aggressively trying to weed out students who don’t belong in their school systems by requiring parents to prove residency in a variety of ways and, in some cases, making surprise home visits to confirm that students actually live at the addresses they say.
In the U.S., boundary hoppers could end up behind bars for theft of educational services or face fines of up to $5,000, as well as paying extra tuition and local taxes. The crime is taken seriously here as taxpaying residents argue that they are educating boundary hoppers, who don’t pay the same taxes, at their own expense.
“Boundary hopping is a huge headache for some schools and we know that many Koreans are at the center of the problem,” says Lee, a Korean education official in Ridgewood, N.J., who didn’t want to be fully named.
“I heard that several Korean students in the Ridgewood district wouldn’t go directly home after school. They would go to the library, spend a few hours there until a van picks them up, stop by a few other places and then finally take them home, which is not located in Ridgewood,” she said. “Someone from the Board of Education got a hold of this information and followed the van. I don’t know what happened next, but people should learn from this. Authorities are watching.”
Despite being a criminal activity, discussing boundary hopping isn’t uncommon in the Korean community. Many say Korean parents who are fresh from South Korea are often unafraid to ask acquaintances to do them the “favor” of lending their address.
“I was asked at least three times last year alone if they could use my home address. These parents all had children in middle and high school. They didn’t seem to know what kind of consequences boundary hopping would bring to me, them and their kids,” says Kim Yoo-eun, who lives in Plano, Texas, a district with one of the best public schools in the state.
Education experts say boundary hopping can not only lead to monetary penalties and criminal charges, but could ruin a student’s chances of entering college.
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2014/09/116_163965.html
I keep hearing stories of a vans dropping kids off at Graydon and they walk the rest of the way into RHS.
Has anyone else heard this ?
Or is this just another urban (village) legend…?
This has been going on for years, relatives would use family address in the village so there kids could go to school in rwd. I used to take the bus to NYC and I would see Asian kid get off at rwd and maple and walk towards rhs.
Can we please enforce this and lower my taxes
Urban legend seems to be accurate and no it will not lower your taxes.
The problem is far greater than several kids getting a free Ridgewood education, but many of them also received additional services due to their poor language skills. This is particularly common with the kids who slide on over from Paterson, using the Ridgewood address of a relative.
These rules can be enforced,but I doubt it will lower your taxes, the cost per student isn’t that high,the BOE s top heavy with mid-level mangers and administrators that don’t teach a class,
If the out-of -towners are forced to pay tuition, then it would certainly lower taxes by increasing revenue from a source other than homeowners.
There already is a program where out of towners can pay tuition but the tax levy continues to grow because what ever saving are realized are not passed on to the tax payers, furthermore the tuition is based of the cost per student computation so there really is no savings to the local tax payer because the student used up the revenue.
I was born and raised in Ridgewood my kids didn’t go to RHS. but I wasn’t going to turn in a couple of kids who were trying to better themselves. I just figured they took my kids place in the school. If they didn’t go to Ridgewood my taxes weren’t going down, and my kids were going to parochial school regardless.
Why should the school fight boundary hoppers, when the US government does not?
Does the mayor support enforcing the law or will he issue a mayoral executive order legalizing all of the undocumented students?
The issue is not merely about how much, if any, taxes might be lowered if just a few families cheat. It is about what happens if you don’t make an effort to stop this. It could become a flood. It also isn’t a good lesson for children teaching them that laws are for suckers to afraid too cheat.
#11 – I guess those vans will stop near Glen Rock HS this academic year since they have a higher ranking than RHS.
Same for Highlands and Ramapo for that matter.
#12 – funny!
Maybe we could also have teachers pay additional tuition for their children who attend RPS. At least they can afford it.