Oak Park and River Forest High School officials refused enrollment to 245 students for the current school year after officials determined they did not live within the school district’s boundaries.
That is equivalent to about 7 percent of the high school’s enrollment of 3,465 students, according to a report prepared for the school board by Principal Nathaniel Rouse. The information was presented at the April 17 board meeting.
Rouse said some of the 245 students had attended class, but most were prevented from enrolling because of investigations done before the beginning of the school year.
According to Rouse’s report, there was a jump in the number of “fraudulent leases that families presented during enrollment, which were invalidated upon further investigation.”
Rouse said in his report that it was “almost impossible” to determine where the students who were turned away ended up enrolling. “The trend” is that most students were from the Austin neighborhood of Chicago, Forest Park, Maywood, Berwyn and Bellwood, according to Rouse’s report.
In all, 1,102 cases of suspected residency fraud were investigated by district officials, Rouse said. Those investigations included follow-up phone calls with families, landlords and previous schools, public database checks, home visits, interviews and surveillance, according to Rouse’s report.
According to Rouse’s report, the verification process is supervised by the assistant principal of student services, and it includes the registrar and residency coordinator, the registrar and two investigators.
He said the staff attempted to determine whether students met residency requirements before the school year began, in order to reduce disruptions to the students’ academic year, Rouse said. Those efforts have been made easier by the district’s use of online databases, Rouse told the board.
Board member Matt Baron said it was “remarkable” that the district is able to save so much money with such a small staff charged with investigating students’ residency.
OPRF spends $21,819 per student, according to the school’s website. According to the OPRF residency report, 185 students were deemed ineligible in the 2016-17 school year, and 230 were turned away in 2015-16.
Heather Cherone is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
