Pleasantdale School District Examines Residency Protocols

The school board Wednesday night took a look at the question of how often the board should require families to validate residency.

After discussing the issue, the board decided not to change its policy of validating residency at the time of enrollment and surveying families with affadavits on file every year.

Superintendent Mark Fredisdorf said there are currently eight families attending school in the district that do not have a mortgage or lease, but do have an affadavit stating that they are living with someone who resides in the district.

 "Should we have a policy in place that says at its sole discretion the district is allowed to request additional documentation within seven days?" Fredisdorf asked.

The board considered the issue and discussed whether they should survey all residents in the district every year or continue only surveying the ones with affadavits on file.

"I think if you’re going to send it to one person, you should send it to everyone," said board member Gina Scaletta-Nelson during the discussion. "The high school does it."

Scaletta-Nelson brought up the possibility of the board surveying the entire district every three years.

"If the purpose is to validate residency, we either do it every year, or we don’t," said Board President Leandra Sedlack. "For those who are not residents of the district, but who are living in the district, I think it’s reasonable to ask to validate them on an annual basis."

The board decided to look into options to establish a formal policy.

"When there are issues of residency, we need a protocol. We don’t have anything right now in policy that addresses what actions or even who’s responsible," said Sedlack. "We should do some research and see what’s out there to put together policy and procedure."

Sedlack said residents who believe someone is not actually a resident of District 107 should bring it to the administration's attention.

"Given our circumstance now, I don't feel we are in a place where we need to have [the survey] repeated every year for everybody," said Fredisdorf after the meeting. He said that if there was a reason to question someone's residency, then the board would look into it.

The board placed the issue of continuing with the current policy on the consent agenda to be voted on at the next board meeting Sept. 21.