Does this has anything to do with school thing?

[whoisjohngalt]

As I mentioned before, we just bought a house. In this area, schools are not by district but by town. I fought long and hard with my dear dear husband to buy a house in the town that we did. He cared more about the house itself and I cared more about the town and schools.

His point was since we are thinking of homeschooling, who cares, but long time ago I heard that "traditional" wisdom was to buy a house in a good school "district" bc the values will stay high.

Anywhooo, we need to register our cars and the town office told me that it's not good enough anymore to bring a cable or electric bill. They want to see a deed or a lease agreement before you can register as the town resident.

I didn't think twice about it until I started reading all this mess with school districts and kids trying to get into "other" schools and what not.

I wonder what other changes this school affiliation thing will bring with it and how important your "permanent residence" place will be.

Thoughts?
Lena

[Deleted]

Soungs like it might be.

Which state are you again? Here in PA, we still look at school district sometimes, even if we homeschool, because some are notoriously more 'pro' homeschool or 'anti' homeschool than others, and we have to report to the local district. (not on topic really, i know...)

[whoisjohngalt]

Yep, I am in Southern (I think?) NH. The girl told me that they just "passed" this new thing about the deed.

Lena

[telephus44]

I'm in central MA and we just had to show an electric bill to register with the town preschool. However, with all the things going on lately about people trying to sneak into other school districts, and with more children with odd custody arrangements, I can see asking for a deed or lease agreement as a reasonable request.

[973beachbum]

Anywhooo, we need to register our cars and the town office told me that it's not good enough anymore to bring a cable or electric bill. They want to see a deed or a lease agreement before you can register as the town resident.

I don't think this has anything to do with the schools. This sounds like what DMV does here in NJ and they always say it is because of the Homeland Security requires the 6 point id for all government places that issue identification cards like drivers licenses. Part of it includes proof of address. Which is why now we actually make sure all the bills are not in one name. I used to have them in my name and for a while all in his. Now it is pretty pathetic when you go down there and can't prove you are still where you have lived for years.

[Deleted]

I live in a very good school district, which is near a very bad school district. A couple of years ago everyone had to bring in a deed or lease agreement to prove residency, regardless of how long your kids had been in the school. Afterwards many students were gone.

[cael]

Ohhh Lena, you live in NH?! Nice! (I love NH, lol - I'm on the North shore of MA) Had you been in a different area before or were you in New England?

[973beachbum]

Mar 3, 2011 9:39:00 GMT -5 @selma said:

I live in a very good school district, which is near a very bad school district. A couple of years ago everyone had to bring in a deed or lease agreement to prove residency, regardless of how long your kids had been in the school. Afterwards many students were gone.

But she isn't being asked to do this to register her kids in school she is registering a car.

[teppe2]

We had to bring in a lease when we registered our cars, had nothing to do with the schools but with the fact that NH does not have an income or sales tax so people from Maine tried to register their cars in NH to avoid paying sales/other taxes.
Now that hubby is stationed outside of NH he has to supply his LES and orders every year showing that we still are NH residents.

[haapai]

Since this is an automobile registration, it might be about the township and its residents avoiding the costs of having outsiders utilizing the parking spaces at the municipal park, dropping off their garbage at the municipal , or taking advantage of the large item drop off day.

But I kinda doubt it. The costs associated with providing those services to outsiders are pretty small compared to the costs of educating kids.

It's kinda slick. Ostensibly it's about applying the same standard of scrutiny to all requests to use municipal services and preventing the need to show a deed or lease to get a library card, and again to park next to the ball field, and a third time to get rid of that recliner but it's really about the schools.

At least I hope it's about the schools. Another explanation has a lot to do with identifying the cars belonging to outsiders and making them uncomfortable. I don't want to go down that road.

[Urban Chicago]

I would think it'd be easier to fake a lease than a utility bill, but then, who am I to question big brother?

[Deleted]

Mar 3, 2011 9:47:15 GMT -5 973beachbum said:

Mar 3, 2011 9:39:00 GMT -5 @selma said:

I live in a very good school district, which is near a very bad school district. A couple of years ago everyone had to bring in a deed or lease agreement to prove residency, regardless of how long your kids had been in the school. Afterwards many students were gone.

But she isn't being asked to do this to register her kids in school she is registering a car.

oops...my apologies. better get back to work...

[telephus44]

Mar 3, 2011 10:03:25 GMT -5 teppe2 said:

We had to bring in a lease when we registered our cars, had nothing to do with the schools but with the fact that NH does not have an income or sales tax so people from Maine tried to register their cars in NH to avoid paying sales/other taxes.
Now that hubby is stationed outside of NH he has to supply his LES and orders every year showing that we still are NH residents.

I live in a small town next to a large city. Car insurance in the city is about twice as expensive as living in one of the small towns. A lot of people register their cars at their parents house in one of the small towns when they actually live in the large city just to avoid paying higher insurance rates. So it's the same idea of falsifying where you live to get the geographical benefit.

[Tiny]

I think the last few years have really put a burden on some school districts because of the property values. Even values in the "good neighborhoods" took a big hit in the housing meltdown. There may also be the issue of too many kids and not enough schools/teachers/facilities. Depending on the district (and the union) one of the ways to hold down costs (to stabalize the number of kids enrolled) is to insure that only the kids in the district attend that district's schools.
My City has implemented this policy and they even have 2 employees who's sole job is to verify that there are no 'out of district kids' in the schools. I live in a densely populated city with lots of densely populated cities around it. My city has 2 highschools - one handles 1500 kids the other larger one handles up to 4000 kids. Some of the programs/classes are combined between the schools - sports teams for instance...

There was a big to do about the initial sweep of the 'out of district' kids - if I remember correctly more than 100 of the HS kids got booted/fined and serveral dozen Jr High kids got booted and another couple dozen got tossed out of the grade school system... At the Jr High and grade school level the numbers freed up "resources' similiar to a classroom and a teacher (most classes have 30 kids...) They figured they'd find even more once they took a closer look versus going after the obvious problems.

[workpublic]

a lot of the districts near me are cutting school buses(imho, rightly so) for out of district students.

[workpublic]

Does this has anything to do with school thing?

definitely

[haapai]

They figured they'd find even more once they took a closer look versus going after the obvious problems.

They just might want to pause before doing that. If the state-provided per pupil funding is higher than the marginal cost of educating another student, they might be better off with the kids enrolled.

A heck of a lot of funding will leave if you boot those kids and your operating costs might not go down by nearly as much.

[Jake 48]

i think it might have to do with car insurance, where the car is registered and where it is parked

[Tiny]

Ah, for car registration and proving residency... there's TONS of reasons why this might be done. I live near commuter rail transportation with Pay to Park parking about 20 steps away from bountiful "free" residential street parking. In order to keep the street parking available for the residents there's a special "city sticker" - if your car doesn't have the right sticker you could get ticketed or even towed if you park on the street (there's ways to get around this... but it's main intent is to get people to Pay to park if they ride the train). The only way to get the special sticker is to prove beyond a shadow of doubt you either own/rent a property on those blocks/streets. There must be about 15 to 20 different "resident only" parking areas in my City.
Another reason for the proof of residency to get a sticker - to curb or help identify overcrowding in houses/apartments - ie Illegal apartments. It's one "politically correct" way to handle the situation. If you've got a single family home with beds rented out to 20 different people - not all of them are going to be able to get sticker for their car(s) as it will raise a red flag - and heck they probably don't have lease agreements anyway. Parking ickets (and then them going unpaid) and having one's car towed possibly gives the person getting the cheap "rent" a headache. It also helps the city identify which buildings may need an "inspection" which is another legal way to shut down the overcrowded and often dangerous illegal apartments.
(Had another house fire that killed 6 people because they couldn't get out of the house... 12 other people got out safely with minor injuries....)