Ossining residents push schools to crack down on residency

Cross posted from: Journal News, January 27, 2010

Ossining residents push schools to crack down on residency

Marcela Rojas
mrojas@lohud.com
OSSINING — Several residents are in an uproar over what they say is the Ossining School District's lack of progress completing a student re-registration process.
More than 50 people are looking to form an "address verification committee" to pressure the Board of Education and administration to remove noncompliant students, resident Mike Aurora said.
The district's recertification started in the fall for students in grades one, three, five, seven and nine, a plan prompted by Aurora and others in 2008. As of Monday, 1,090 of the 1,293 households asked to re-register had done so, Superintendent Phyllis Glassman said. But she maintained that 1,090 was a "minimum" figure, as the district is still sorting through data. The district has a total of 4,300 students, she said.
Aurora said he had been stonewalled by district officials in getting accurate recertification figures and has grown fed up with their drawn-out approach.
The Ossining district sent letters in August advising parents of registration evenings in October. Additional registration dates were held in December. In early January, 400 certified letters were sent to unresponsive families, and another registration night was held Jan. 14.
"At what point is enough, enough?" said Aurora, who has children in grades two and four. "We're at the point now that if the administration is not going to openly share these findings and commit to an enough-is-enough deadline for these kids to be removed, we're going to commence action to start petitions to remove the superintendent and look for viable candidates to run against the Board of Education members up for election."
He also stressed that giving people three to four months to produce documents allows them time to change names on utility bills. The district has asked families to provide three original proofs of residency.
Glassman said last week the district will continue to reach out to families who have not re-registered but did not have a firm timeframe as to when that effort would end.
She stressed that many families have come forward since October, and that had they been excluded then, the district would have been "violating the law, (state education) commissioner's regulations and their civil rights."
"We're going to continue to determine why the students' families who have not re-registered have not done so, and will act accordingly," she said.
Aurora said that New York education law says tuition can be collected from nonresident pupils. "If they are reluctant to remove the children that cannot provide proof of residency, then they should immediately implement a tuition program to offset the burden on the taxpayers," he said.

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