Some Palo Alto Parents Lie For Kids To Attend Better Schools – News Story – KNTV | San Francisco
Some Palo Alto parents are lying and cheating to get their children into the best schools possible.

Palo Alto Unified School District administrators said they carry out more than 200 investigations a year about parents possibly lying about their residence to qualify to attend a school.

“They do all sorts of different things,” said Steve Lawrence of the Palo Alto Unified School District. “We have people saying they are living with relatives that are really living someplace else.”

Margie Mitchell of the Palo Alto Unified School District said, “We have parents that come in and try and give us falsified lease agreements and property tax statements. We are on an overflow basis right now, especially in the elementary grades.”

[snip]

One Palo Alto parent, who did not want to identify herself, said she does not feel bad lying about where she lived.

“Why should my daughter come home after the first day at school and be so depressed and sad?” she asked. “If my choice was to send my daughter to that school or and try and cheat the system I chose to try and cheat the system.”

The mother sends her children to a high performing school in the town where her relatives live. She uses their address.

“Why we don’t live there is economic reasons at this point in our life that’s where we want to live,” she said. “Under our circumstances we can’t.”

Palo Alto is not the only school district facing the residency-cheating problem. The Fremont Union High School District said it investigated about 200 fraud cases last year. Of those cases the district said it found about 10 percent of the parents cheated their way into the district.

This is the kind of stuff that makes the Real Bay Area special.

This is the kind of stuff that gives kids going to Real Bay Area schools the advantage.

Think about it… if kids weren’t exposed to these sorts of things, how would they ever become successful C-level executives? Would they even be able to fathom something as obvious as backdating options? Or getting their company to buy them a corporate jet, and pay them for using it?

Even worse – how would the kid learn that one should do things like that, and not feel bad about it?

Silicon Valley has always been about being an entrepreneur, about “asking for forgiveness is easier than asking for permission”, about can-do spirit. And this is how it all begins – by going to the right school.

No wonder Palo Alto real estate is so expensive. Actually… given the life lessons… it’s a deal.

So recently, all Sunnyvale (and possibly Cupertino) residents got a flyer from the Fremont Union High School District highlighting this:

Ah yes… in most places, you get busted for cutting school. In the Bay Area, you’re supposed to drop a dime on those who are going to the wrong school.

Considering that the median condo in Santa Clara is $500,000, and that the median home is $723,500 these days… isn’t it kind of strange that parents are pulling all sorts of shenanigans to get their kids into a better school?

Sure… maybe you bought a house in a cheaper neighborhood… like… only $600,000. At that price shouldn’t you get a school that you’re proud of? Instead of sneaking your kids somewhere else?

And why the crackdown anyway? The median home price of Sunnyvale-Cupertino ranges from $655,000-$920,000.

This explains it:

Of course! The local community where median home prices ranges from $655,000-$920,000 is having a financial crisis. Better budget an additional $15,000 a year to send your kids to private K-12!

Only in California.

Thank you Proposition 13.

Update 4/18: Some people have linked to this saying that this is due to illegal immigration. My sources say that it is not necessarily the case – that even citizens do it. Let’s say you own a house in East Palo Alto – wouldn’t you rather your child go to… say Gunn instead?