Schools
D86 to Go After Residency Rule-Breakers
Acting Superintendent Bruce Law said administration is considering making it mandatory that all students at Hinsdale Central and Hinsdale South prove their residency each year.
District 86 administration wants to more strictly enforce residency requirements for Hinsdale Central and Hinsdale South families in order to ensure taxpayers are not subsidizing education of non-taxpayers.
Acting Superintendent Bruce Law said during Monday night's board of education meeting that district officials are working on crafting a recommended procedure for board action requiring all District 86 students, new and returning, to prove their residency within the district before each school year.
"It's extremely important that all the students that attend a District 86 school and receive a District 86 education are residents of the district," Law said. "We have a duty to the taxpayers to go out and make sure that everyone who gets and education here, resides here."
Currently, District 86 does not make returning students prove their residency. Last year, Law said, 102 students at Hinsdale Central and more than 400 at Hinsdale South were "red-flagged" and required to prove their residency after administration suspected that they did not live within the district's boundaries.
District 86 does not have numbers on the number of those red-flagged students who were residents and who were not.
The acting superintendent made contact with 17 other school districts to ask about their residency practices, and 11 make all students verify residency each year. Among those were Lyons Township District 204, Glenbard District 87, DuPage High School District 88.
No board members present Monday expressed opposition to a new residency procedure. Jennifer Planson said such a procedure was put in place in Gower School District 62 when she sat on that district's board.
She said the first year was difficult and angered a lot of parents who might not have heard about the change.
"The system is now in place and parents have come to know what they need to do," Planson said. "It's become a pretty seamless effort."
Law told the board he hoped to have a recommendation ready for a vote "very soon."
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