North Pike School District trustees are giving students suspected of living out of district three chances to prove residency, and the district has hired a firm to help crack down on residency verifications.
Trustees approved an agreement Thursday with Southwest Security Co. for residency verifications.
Superintendent Dennis Penton said North Pike has 180 affidavits regarding students’ residency that need to be verified, but the district lacks a resource officer.
“The only way to prove residency is for someone to check if a student is living there after hours,” he said.
He said the projected cost of hiring someone to do this is about $16 per hour plus mileage.
Families waiting on verification will have three chances to prove that the student who is supposed to live within school limits lives there before the student will be removed from the district.
“We know a lot of them are legitimate, but we suspect a lot of them are not,” Penton said. “This is a fairly efficient way for us to outsource.”
Trustee Kevin Matthew said he is concerned about students who get on school buses at locations inside the school district, but there is no house on the property.
“That needs to end,” he said.
Penton said some students are being picked up at those locations by grandparents or baby sitters and staying inside the school district until a parent gets home, but the child doesn’t actually live within the district.
