Do You Have to Lie to Get Your Child in a Good School?

Sending Lily to the single-gender middle school was the best thing we ever did. So was switching churches to one where she felt more comfortable (can you have two best things you ever did?). Alas, her middle school only goes through eighth grade, so we've got to find a good high school to send her to next year.

Then we have to figure out a way to get her in.

The single-gender middle school she's attending is in another school district, Richland District 2. A good school district, run by professional, fair-minded people. They are very upfront about how somebody from outside of their district can get a child into the school of their choice. We had to:

1. Buy property in that district (we bought an empty lot from parents whose daughter was finishing up the single-gender program and returning to District 1);
2. Apply for the magnet single-gender program and be accepted;
3. Pay tuition every year. This year's tuition was $4,000. Yes, we pay tuition to go to public school. Don't that beat all?

We could stay in that district, keep paying tuition, and get her into a good high school by getting her in a good magnet program. But the schools keep getting farther and farther away from where we live. And why should we pay tuition and drive two hours a day (30 minutes there and 30 minutes back in the morning, same trip in the afternoon) when there are good high schools in the district we live in?

Trouble is, we aren't zoned for the good high schools. And District 1 is not run by fair-minded, professional people. The school we are zoned for is better known for the gangs it breeds and the occasional football player who goes on to be a star in college or beyond. A neighbor's daughter went there. If you asked her how school was, she would burst into tears. Her parents wouldn't allow her to talk about it. They moved to Florida.

Lily is not going to that school we are zoned for. Period. It is a failing school and not safe either.

But here's the thing. How do I get her into one of our district's two good high schools?

On April 15, I will need to go to the district office and plead my case to get her transferred to a decent school. I understand I need to treat this day like a rock concert where the tickets are quickly sold out, waiting in the darkness of the early morning, standing in a line with other hopeful, stressed parents for the district office to open and the bureaucrats to begin their bureaucratting.

Based on the experiences of my friends, this is a nearly useless exercise. One woman had all of her paperwork for the transfer typed up, notarized and included back-up documents. When she got to the front of the line, the bureaucrat dismissed her, saying her paperwork wasn't right! The person behind my friend had no paperwork at all. The bureaucrat filled it out for her and accepted it.

My friend is white. The bureaucrat and the person she helped were black. My friend called the district supervisor that afternoon. She said, "I think my problem is that I'm the wrong color." The supervisor did not like this at all.

Unfortunately, another white friend had a similar experience and came away saying that she, too, had been the victim of racism.

These are the things that happen and we whisper among ourselves, afraid that in our charges of racism we will be called racists.

I'm calling around, talking to other parents and teachers, trying to figure out how to get my daughter into a school where the challenges will be academic, not challenges for survival, and where she can get into a good college. I want her peers to be college bound, not bound to drop out before graduation. So far, the advice has been that I have to play the game. That means I have to lie.

Some people "borrow" addresses of relatives and friends who live in the right school zone. Some sublet rooms or pay people to use their addresses. And they teach their children to lie about where they live so they won't be thrown out of school.

There's another route. If I can find a course that is offered at one of the good schools that is not offered at the gangsta high school we're zoned for, we can get Lily in on that. So far, all I've found is Russian. I think you need a burning desire to learn Russian in order to succeed at Russian, so I'm still looking. I'd hate to do that to her. She loves French.

The district bureaucrats know that people do this, so they don't make the course roster easily accessible. I'm trying to get a listing of what the two good high schools and the one bad high school offer so I can compare. I did find the comprehensive roster for the whole district, and I have to say, it was disturbing. They had a special section on students who are going from the eighth grade to the ninth grade. They call these students "raising ninth graders." This error is repeated everywhere. They call themselves educators. It's rising. I guess I should be grateful that they're not planning on razing them.

What a world.

Comments

[I Gallop On]

Affirmative action at its very best. Aargh. You're not going to win that one.

I think I'd be tempted to borrow an address. It's crazy that on top of our taxes, you would have to pay tuition for a public charter school.

I'm looking forward to the day when our government lets us use our tax money to put our kids in the schools we choose for them. Both of my kids are in private schools, but I'm also paying some hefty taxes to support our local failing public schools. However, that day might come within a hundred years or so. Perhaps some of my ancestors will be able to benefit from it.

Keep up the good fight.

Pax. Kimberly

[Angela]

Oh, Anne - This district bites!

[Racmc]

Having gone to Church for most of my life (and my daughter's) and being involved in various church community initiatives I was a bit disgruntled when I found out that we should have gone to church almost every Sunday for the last 4 years to get my daughter into an excellent high school - nothng else mattered, just the last 4 years. Being an honest family we sat down with the priest and worked out our attendance over the last 4 years and found ourselves 100 points off the required 440.
I can live with this. We have spent some Sundays visiting family, sailing, watching my son in cricket matches and other special family times. HOWEVER, when I found out that another family, who I can safely say go to church far less than us, had filled in their own numbers (which they aren't meant to do) as 42 / 52 per year for the last 4 years and somehow.. as the prienst "didn't know them, so wasn't sure how many times they had been".. he signed it and now they stand a very good chance of getting the kid into the school I'm feeling very bitter.
Has anyone else encountered this? I feel I need to do something about it - tell the school? I don't know, but SOMETHING! My daughter would have dearly liked to go to the school in question, but I had to explain to her that we hadn't been to church enough in the last 4 years. Now she's seen her friend lie her way in... how do I explain that?