Phillipsburg School District to re-register families to ensure students live within district

PHILLIPSBURG | Parents in the Phillipsburg School District will be asked to prove they live within the district's borders at the start of school year, district officials say.

The re-registration effort doesn't coincide with any urgent need, according to Business Administrator William Bauer, but it could net in long-term savings.

"You're talking about children who don't belong in the school so eventually there's a cost-saving, especially since we're seeing larger class sizes," Bauer said.

The process for Phillipsburg parents should be easy if they're living legally within the district, officials said.

The district on the first day of school will send home a form that must be filled out and sent back with two proofs of residence for at least one parent, Bauer said. Eligible information would include current photo identification, such as a driver's license, and a residential utility bill.

"It shouldn't be difficult for those who are not trying to cheat the system," Bauer said.

Parents will have roughly one month to get the information back to district officials.

P'burg programs attract out-of-district families

Phillipsburg's free, all-day preschool program is a big draw for parents both inside and outside district boundaries, according to district officials. Bauer said the school district's special education program also attracts out-of-district families.

"It's not being unreasonable," Bauer said of the registration effort. "But you'll find that a lot of districts on the borders are having problems with this."

Historically, he said, many of the out-of-district violators have been former Phillipsburg families who moved to Pennsylvania.

If investigation shows that a family no longer lives in the district, the child is asked to leave the district at the end of the week, depending on the circumstances, Bauer said.

While some violations are called in by tipsters, many of the whistleblowers are the children themselves.

"They just tell the truth," Bauer said.

Bethlehem Area battles in-district violations

As a school district much larger than Phillipsburg, the Bethlehem Area School District has a different method to ensure students attending class live within the borders.

Because Bethlehem Area has about 14,800 students, compared to Phillipsburg's estimated enrollment of 4,300, Child Accounting Department Supervisor June Majewski said re-registration would be "lunacy."

Instead, the Bethlehem Area School District has found a simpler way to catch violators.

The district sends mail with a return service requested envelope, ensuring that the district is alerted of address changes.

"If a family has moved out of our district or even changed location within the district, the mail cannot be forwarded to them," Majewski said.

About a dozen families are caught each year trying to enroll from outside the district or at a different school within district borders, according to Majewski.

The district has 22 schools with enrollment based on geographic location, so Majewski said violations regularly spring up.

Common mistakes flare up when a new family moves into the district and receives incorrect information from neighbors or real estate agents about which school their children will attend.

"We always ask Realtors to please contact our office and we tell families, too," Majewski said. "Call us with 10 possible addresses, we don't care, we'd rather we tell you (which schools children will be attending) ... rather than you taking someone else's word for it."