UPDATE, March 13, 2013: According to Stephen Ceasar in today's Los Angeles Times, "Carpenter [Community Charter in Studio City] is taking action. In the coming weeks, school officials will be knocking on the doors, giving parents another chance to prove they live where they claim to. If it is determined that they committed fraud, their children will be allowed to finish the year before they get the boot.
Carpenter is believed to be among the first L.A. Unified schools to launch such a wide-scale crackdown. Across Los Angeles, families scramble to secure housing within the boundaries of high-performing schools. And it is no secret that some game the system by using the addresses of relatives who live near sought-after campuses or doctoring documents like utility bills and rental agreements."....
March 5, 2013: Barbara Jones of the Los Angeles Daily News reports:
Los Angeles Unified School District will let schools use public records to verify student addresses after a high-performing charter in Studio City complained that...as many as 120 of the school's 1,000 students enrolled in Carpenter Community Charter School in Studio City used addresses that falsely show they live in the area. These kids have pushed the school to capacity, and officials say there may not be enough room for all the local youngsters who want to enroll in kindergarten next year.
After contentious meetings with parents worried about an enrollment lottery, district officials beefed up the policy so Carpenter and other schools can use electronic databases to search property records and reject incoming students who don't belong.
"Resident students should have a seat at their resident school," Carpenter Principal Joe Martinez, above left, said... {LAUSD] officials say it's likely that parents have gamed the system to get their students into other high-performing schools like Carpenter...Charters also find themselves struggling under a state law which says that students who legitimately enroll in their neighborhood charter can continue attending that school if they move to a different area. "If that child is legally in attendance, you can't kick them out," [LAUSD school board member Tamar] Galatzan said.
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