For more than a month, Carolyn Thompson suspected someone was tailing her to and from her son’s school.
http://liarcatchers.com/studentresidency.html
One day after picking him up from Tevis Junior High, she made random turns and still the four-door sedan was behind her.
After she got to her apartment, the car parked outside it. The car was still there when she took her son to school the next morning.
“It was scary, because I didn’t know if someone was trying to hurt us,” she said.
In the end she learned she was indeed being stalked — not by a criminal but by a private eye hired by a school district.
And now she has filed complaints that may lead to lawsuits.
Thompson was the target of a little known exercise in which school district attorneys hire investigators to track the activities of parents to see if they really do live in the district. In her case, the Panama-Buena Vista Union School District suspected she didn’t live within its boundaries, according to a claim Thompson filed with the state.
Covert operations of this type are not unprecedented for schools here or elsewhere, said Grant Herndon, lead counsel for a company called Schools Legal Service.
The Bakersfield-based service advises many local schools and colleges. And tailing people is something the company “occasionally” does when it needs an objective third-party to investigate matters during potential lawsuits, he said.
Some lawyers familiar with school policies were startled by the disclosure.
Arturo Revelo, a local attorney who has worked on school-related cases, called the operation a “violation of privacy.”
“And it’s a total waste of public resources,” he said.
It’s not immediately clear if the district’s spying will be cost-effective. Special education students can cost districts as much as four times the cost of education most students. But the bill for the espionage is unknown, and legal costs seem almost certain in this case.
Nicole Hodge Amey, Thompson’s Los Angeles-based attorney, devotes a significant share of her work to special education cases in Southern California.
She said she has never had a client followed by a school agency.
In this case, the private eye — a former Kern County sheriff’s deputy and Bakersfield police officer — followed Thompson around for a month starting in April. She did live within Panama’s boundaries for several years, but had to move just outside them last school year because of financial problems.
“If there’s some question as to residency, we can have that checked out,” Herndon said. “Investigators follow a code of ethics and are very respectful.”
Thompson, not feeling very respected, has filed a separate complaint against the district for emotional distress.
That’s in addition to a complaint against Panama, filed before the legal team had someone follow her, alleging the district wasn’t providing her son adequate special education services, which are very expensive.
“I feel like they violated my rights,” Thompson said. “All I wanted … was for him to go to school and get an education.”
Residency
It’s no secret that some parents lie about their home address to get their kids into schools with better test scores or sports programs than their home campus or district.
If they choose to obey the rules, parents can ask for an interdistrict transfer. It’s up to each district school board to approve or deny those requests based on capacity, for example.
If school officials suspect parents aren’t following the rules, they’ll try to seek out the truth.
The superintendent of the Fruitvale School District, the highest-achieving school district in Kern County, chose not to disclose those tactics but said he’s never used a private investigator.
“When inconsistencies are brought to the district’s attention, staff will re-look at the particular situation and determine what would be the appropriate information needed to confirm parent residency in the district,” Superintendent Carl Olsen said. “This may include additional paperwork or a home visit.”
Norris School District — a close second for highest achieving in Kern — borrowed its residency policies from Fruitvale. California’s education code on residency also guides districts. For example, parents can only choose one residence for a child.
Norris finds that parents of about 30 to 40 students each year — out of about 3,700 — don’t live in the district. Many of them “test score shop,” Superintendent Wally McCormick said.
“It’s not a huge problem, but it’s an irritant,” McCormick said. “Our board believes that our local schools are for the local community, for our local taxpayers. Why should someone else benefit from (their taxes)?”
Norris allows students who have gone to its schools, but moved away, to continue to attend — barring behavior or attendance issues.
Norris has not used a private investigator, McCormick said.
Officials at districts, including at Panama-Buna Vista Union, look at myriad clues to determine if students don’t live in their district, such as excessive tardiness and absences; kids hanging out on campus well before or after school; and when mail sent home is returned.
The most common way Panama officials find out: the kids say so themselves. Panama officials could not discuss Thompson’s case based on pending litigation.
School P-I
Schools Legal Service — and not the districts or school boards themselves — do the private investigator hiring. Agency officials couldn’t immediately disclose the number of times they’ve done so, but said it costs $63 to $75 per hour.
Examples of when it typically calls in investigators include the filing of personal injury claims — to see if a person truly is injured — and to resolve such personnel issues as sexual harassment allegations, Herndon said..
“They investigate objectively using specified techniques,” Herndon said.
Many times those cases are special education-related. Herndon would not comment specifically about Thompson’s case, citing pending litigation and attorney-client privilege.
“A third party comes in handy,” Herndon said. “And it’s not always undercover. For those, it’s really occasional. I wouldn’t say we have people out once a week.”
Panama case
In Thompson’s case, the private investigator was hired after she filed a claim with the California Office of Administrative Hearings special education department. She argued Panama-Buena Vista was not providing “free appropriate public education” for her child, among other things, records show.
Panama officials grew suspicious about whether Thompson was living in the district when she did not provide proof of residence on several occasions, and when she requested mail be sent to a P.O. Box, records show.
In March, Schools Legal Service hired the private investigator to make sure the district wasn’t mandated to provide special education services — which can be expensive and time-consuming, school officials said.
In Norris, educating a special-needs child can cost about $20,000 per year as opposed to about $4,700 for a regular education child.
The private investigator followed Thompson nearly every day from March 14 to May 2, court records show.
Early on, the investigator noted Thompson “appeared extremely paranoid” and was driving in “an erratic manner” from Tevis Junior High.
“She appeared to be conducting counter-surveillance,” the investigator said, according to court documents.
“I didn’t know why they were following me,” Thompson told The Californian. “I didn’t know what was going on. We were scared.”
A second investigator video recorded Thompson arriving at and leaving her apartment, which was less than two miles outside the district and in the Greenfield Union School District.
Thompson said financial difficulties forced her to move out of the district, live in Los Angeles for a few months and then stay locally with a relative before a local organization helped her find an apartment — the one investigators followed her to.
The legal battle has begun and the district won the first round.
Panama-Buena Vista prevailed in the state Office of Administrative Hearings case on Oct. 11, records show. A judge found it provided Thompson’s child adequate services. Thompson’s attorney said that claim was a necessary first step before filing a lawsuit.
The separate emotional distress claim seeks $1 million for “suffered stress and a loss of security in their ability to travel freely without being stalked and spied on.”
Panama-Buena Vista’s school board recently rejected that claim, as is routine. The filing and rejection of a claim are often the precursors to a lawsuit.
