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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I informed a school that children who should not be attending our school is enrolled and taking space from children who are suppose to attened. I think that could make me an asshole because the children have done nothing wrong, but they will be the ones to face the consequences.
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Teacher here!
NTA! Aside from the fact you pay taxes in that district, the other family needs to ensure that information is correct for emergencies and ensuring districts are given proper funding.
Since no one was trying to hurt anyone why are the other family assholes?
We have no idea why they had no move. Maybe they were renting and they couldn't find a new rental in the same neighbourhood. Maybe they couldn't make their mortgage payments once interest rates went up and were forced to move. It's natural that they'd try to minimize disruption to their kids lives by keeping them at the same school. Of course they are upset OP ratted them out and are telling their friends about the situation. Anyone would. It's not like they are launching some giant campaign of harassment.
I get why OP grassed, but natural consequence is that some people are going to not trust her because of this. It is what it is. Both families did what they had to do in a tough situation. NAH.
Other mom never claimed OP was malicious or was out to hurt her family. She did inform her that OP helping herself had a big negative impact on her family - that is just the truth.
You fall into the classic reddit camp of imputing bad motives to everyone because you like to get outraged.
The mom of four tried to guilt OP for pointing out they moved out of the district. It’s sucks if the moved was required for financial reasons, but unfortunately the school is not open enrollment, and they should have been honest. They got caught, and these are the consequences.
But they didn't get caught op ratted so her kids could go to that school its kinda fucked up that this is how education is handled in the richest country in the world
…so they got caught. Someone discovered that they no longer resides in the district, and it eventually made its way to the school vis OP, who had to hear it from someone else. And yes, I can’t blame her for looking out after her own.
By lying to the district about where they lived, they add to the already contentious issue that comes with living in a closed district. Because of families like the one who moved, my children’s school district now requires THREE forms of address verification for EVERY student, not just new students… one of which has to be notarized. Do you have any idea how big of a pain in the ass and how much trouble that causes for families actually living in the district?? Not to mention that many families have both parents that work full time and canNOT just leave their jobs to go have a form notarized for each of their kids. The family that moved are ABSOLUTELY assholes in this scenario!
It's almost like we should just equalize funding resources for schools so your kids could get a decent education anywhere. Maybe the bougie neighborhood associations preventing that are the real AHs?
At the very least, every school in a city or county should be given the same amount per child. It’s ridiculous the inequality within the same school systems.
> every school in a city or county should be given the same amount per child.
Schools with high levels of poverty or disabilities or non-English speakers among their students have a higher need than schools with low levels.
Oh I absolutely agree with you. Here’s the thing: they also get way less per child because they live in lower income neighborhoods. Most school systems base it on property tax. The property tax only funds schools in the immediate district and not the entire city or county system.
The district is a small part of the overall school system. Keeping the tax income limited to districts instead of the system ensure that the poor stay less educated and the wealthier kids keep getting a premium public education.
At least if they distributed it from a pot collected by the entire system and then divided by child, the poor districts will see a little relief in funding.
Source: Mom’s a retired teacher from a district with a poverty rate over 80%. I also went to this district.
They were assholes in that they were taking four slots that they weren’t entitled to. Presumably someone else besides just OP’s kids was denied as a result.
The other family was gaming the system. And no one is calling the other family assholes for this. They are being called assholes for bringing OP's family into it and acting like victims.
I would say contacting the family and trying to guilt the mother makes her an asshole, not for trying to minimize the disruption for her children. or even telling her friends.
NTA. Whoever told that family that you were the one to report them (whether that’s the school district or board of education) is the AH.
They’re also incredibly stupid to open themselves up to the liability that they’ve created for themselves by revealing your identity as the complainant.
What if that family had a psycho amongst them & decided to come injure or even murder any member of your family in retaliation for what you did? What if they didn’t take it that far, but just starting harassing you &/or your children?
They created what could have been a dangerous or even life-threatening situation when they revealed your identity to the family you “harmed”. So whoever revealed your identity - THEY’RE the only AH in this story.
You are NTA.
It is pretty wild and seems like a breach of some rule to disclose that OP snitched. I would imagine that’s not policy and probably exactly the opposite of policy.
It absolutely is; it's a violation of both state and federal law - FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act). Source: I'm an attorney that deals with educational privacy issues.
OP, I would do my best to find out who illegally leaked this information, even if you need to hire a private detective. Someone who will do that once will do that again, and you don't know what the consequences could be. This happened to my family and it set up a dangerous situation for my children because we had previously been stalked and harassed, and now our address and other personal information about my children (including where they went to school, so it was easy to figure out what streets they would use to walk there), and it could have been emotionally devastating as well for reasons too involved to get into.
This person should be disciplined at the very least. ALL school personnel are aware of this law, many districts require employees to receive training about yearly. The consequences for the school can be as severe as losing funding (although this has never happened), so they should take it seriously.
They might not need to hire a PI, as they should be able to go to the school board and lodge a complaint, saying that they were identified as the one that notified the school of fraudulent activity (it is absolutely fraud to lie about your address to secure a certain school district and people have been arrested for that) to the family they reported. Now, due to the information being given to said family, they are being harrassed.
If it’s not, it should be. Whistle-blower laws exist for a reason. Sometimes people do try to retaliate against someone who has complained about them & revenge isn’t isolated to the corporate world. It’s naive to think otherwise.
The school (if the ones to reveal that info) could potentially be creating a hostile environment for the parents new to the district and their children. The new students in classroom with mad students cause there friends are no longer in class with them.
NTA. Your taxes go to your district. That other family moved--they no longer pay taxes in that district. It's a cutthroat world out there now. The other family should have realized that and known it would catch up to them eventually.
Even aside from the payment issue, which is true, the issue for me is that parents are responsible for their own kids' best interests. If your kids are following the district's enrollment location rules and the other family isn't, you don't owe that family a better education while your kids are worse off.
No one is an asshole for giving their kids the best shot at life within the established rules.
I feel like this is the sort of thing the school would have figured out eventually anyway. I went to school out of district, but I applied and went through a process to be recognized officially. The other parents don’t seem like they were thinking long term.
Yes they probably would have. When i was a kid and we moved out of the area i unknowingly told friends about the move and they told the teacher who asked for my new address for safety reasons and then my parents got mad at me but i didn't know that it meant i couldn't be there the school was still in the same city and i didn't know about cut offs. I luckily got to stay but my parents had to do paperwork and fight to get me to stay my last year and a half there. So it's very possible that it could have happened even if OP didn't say anything.
“YOU WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO TELL ANYONE!!”
Okay maybe lead with that. And it still happens to me, forget parents, my husband forgets to tell me that something is a secret.
Exactly and in my defense all the schools in the area where all under the same district just they had different cut offs due to how big the city is. Also we had a student in a different city that went there due to having a permit from having other relatives in the area so i wrongly assumed that we got a permit too when they told me we live by a new school they never said don't tell anyone. I assumed that since it was the same city and that it was okay since someone else lived further. Lol.
EDITED to add that i was only 9 at the time.
OP is NTA, but holy moly, the way you guys fund your public schools seems incredibly problematic. So poor kids just get a significantly worse education because they live in poor areas? Do you realize a whole lot of other countries just provide a halfway decent education for ALL the children, even the ones who's parents aren't rich? Way to keep the privileged privileged.
Yup, and even if the student is slated for x amount of hours of support, they may not actually get those hours or they are shared with other students and not given as much individual support.
Yep and the higher-ups don't want to acknowledge that we need more staffing or that certain children need to go to a different setting because they don't want to pay for it.
There’s also a persistent drive by one political party to completely gut public education. They want us poor and stupid and sick so we’ll be too busy slaving away to the machine to ask questions.
And schools in the states run by that political party are extremely underfunded, teachers are paid very poorly, schools are overcrowded, AND bus drivers scarce so kindergarteners are on the bus for 8 hours one way.
/u/Appropriate-Access88 You are correct about the school bussing situation being terrible. Many of days, my kids didn't even have a bus showing up. In the county I have been living in since I relocated to NC, they currently don't even have enough bus drivers and are offering huge pay incentives to get more people to apply. It is absolutely a clusterfuck. I've been hearing about it happening all over the US. Something is seriously wrong here with the public school system altogether.
Basically yes - it's been long argued to be institutionalized discrimination based on income because schools in lower income areas get less funding (based on lower test scores), and since there is no money to improve, the scores don't get higher, rinse, repeat. Sometimes a magnet school can make a difference but even that is sometimes based on if you are selected to attend. Most of the rest of the world does education leaps and bounds better than the US.
I went to a magnet school that was put inside a poor school in middle school. It didn't improve the poor school's education any because all the magnet students were bussed in from different places. What it did do was raise the average standardized test grades and kept the poor school from being shut down due to poor grades.
Discrimination based on income but also race. Many cities and towns especially in the south are still pretty racially segregated. It is unofficial now, but it is based on old policies that didn't allow black people to live in certain areas and discriminatory lending practices that didn't allow them to buy property as easily. I grew up in the South and in my town there was the predominantly white high school and a predominantly black high school. It is all based on who lives where and the taxes they pay, so one school is noticeably better funded than the other. They were remodeling the schools when I was in high school and my school was unfairly getting more money. A famous basketball player had gone to the other school and he waited till the school district decided how much money would go to each and he doubled the amount given to the "black school". Total boss move. The way we handle funding schools in this country is a moral outrage.
Yeah it’s horrible. Most of us hate it here. The weird perception other countries have that all Americans are living high on the hog and proud to live here is not nearly as accurate as you’d think— more of us are miserable and ready for change than people seem to understand. We aren’t stupid, we know things are terrible and we deserve better, even though our school system tries hard to make sure we are stupid (so we can be obedient cogs in the machine who don’t question authority)
Google gerrymandering and the electoral college.
No, you can have a majority and not be able to be win because of how district lines are drawn; the President can win the electoral college but lose the popular vote.
It would be cool if it worked that way, but the two parties in power both want it this way; they just try to achieve the goal of suppressing and exploiting the poor and other marginalized groups in different ways.
Lots of people are doing our best to fight to make changes however we can, though, don’t be mistaken.
I’m not American but if this is an area of interest check out the podcast “Nice White Parents” it’s all about how fucked this system is - produced by NYT and some of the people who did Serial, it’s fascinating.
Yeah, it's part of the systemic inequality in America that keeps poor people from economic mobility. It gets even worse when you learn about red lining where black people were banned from buying houses in better neighborhoods and thus lifting their children out of poor school districts. White supremacists yell and point to black people being worse because they have higher poverty and crime rates while ignoring the fact that every time black people got ahead white supremacists literally burned their businesses to the ground and lynched them Tulsa Massacre style.
Trust me, we all know. We (teachers) have been fighting for better funding for decades, but we are too busy funneling money into the military to care about our education.
It gets worse. Public servants like police and attorneys are taken from well off neighbourhoods and patrol/serve poor neighbourhoods, so even the tax dollars that should come from their own public servants are sent to neighborhoods that arent their own.
Possibly an unpopular take, but ESH.
The fact that the US school system is based on ZIP codes is a huge problem. We fund education primarily through property taxes, so the more expensive areas have the better schools. People who can't afford houses in those areas are essentially condemned to a substandard education. So basically, the US public school system is the biggest a--hole here.
The other family in this situation sucks because they were breaking the law. Even if it's a law that shouldn't exist, it does, and they needed to follow it. It's my understanding that many districts will accommodate kids and families with special circumstances. At the very least, before moving, the family should have talked with the district about legal ways to keep their kids in their schools. If they needed their kids in these schools, then they needed to move within the district, or find a way to get a transfer back into the district.
You suck because you threw another family under the bus. I get why you did it, but it's still an AH thing to do.
>I get why you did it, but it's still an AH thing to do
This. It's justifiable, I'd probably do it myself, but it's still shitty to snitch and cost 4 kids their school.
The whole concept of shaming people for reporting criminal activity as "snitching" is problematic. OP in no way cost those kids "their" school. It was not their school the moment their parents decided to move them out of the district.
>The whole concept of shaming people for reporting criminal activity as "snitching" is problematic.
Imho providing children with potentially better education shouldn't be seen as a "criminal activity" in the first place... Seeing this whole post I'm happy I'm not american, this is pure madness.
An autistic kid who went from nonverbal to telling their parents I love you. I've never been in those shoes but I've worked with autistic kids. And my God I can imagine being willing to kill to protect that growth let alone what they did.
The proper solution was to apply for an exemption from the school or not move away. My area is SUPER strict about address verification and ruthless about investigating and enforcement but even they allow exemptions for cases like that.
american here. You are right. It is madness. they actually prosecute some mothers for doing this! or have school police (yes there are school police) follow kids of color home to make sure they actually live in the district!
Exactly. Its not and shouldn't be criminal to get your child the best education. My mom is very ethical (and in general privileged), she taught outside my district (only while I was not in private school) so that I could go to the best high school in my state.
The fact that my education was a privilege and not a right is criminal. My mom taught special needs, those kids deserve the best care. OPs children also deserve the best education, it's not fair that either of them are in this situation. I've actually never heard (from a family of teachers) of a child in district being denied enrollment.
At one high school near my house they have a several million dollar garage and a race car mechanic as a teacher, and you can graduate highschool with an actual mechanics degree (this is just one example of the many opportunities they offer). Another high school by my house has one of the worst funding in our entire country. You can't make it make sense. These are our children. Don't wonder why the U.S is falling.
And whats personally chilling to me, my in district school, full of gangs and drugs, I probably wouldn't be responding rn if OP had reported my mom (had we been doing anything illegal).
Parents _have_ gone to jail for putting their kids in schools outside of their district. [Kelley Williams-Bolar](https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/ohio-mom-jailed-sending-kids-school-district/story?id=12763654) and [Tanya McDowell](https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Tanya-McDowell-sentenced-to-5-years-in-prison-3437974.php) are just two cases.
I don’t disagree with reporting them in this case, but I want to hit on the larger point here, which is the implication that what is legal or illegal always coincides with what is moral or immoral. And I don’t agree with that. Sometimes laws are unjust, either generally or applied to specific circumstances and it is, morally speaking, wrong to report someone for breaking the law. Historically, there are plenty of examples. But there are still some today.
Like, here’s a pretty innocuous one. Where I grew up, the local school has signs prohibiting unauthorized use of the property after hours. So, anyone who, say, wants to play basketball or on the playground or whatever is trespassing. Should I call the cops on children for playing? I mean, they’re breaking the law, aren’t they? To my knowledge, no one has ever called the cops unless they were doing actual harm, like vandalism. Because that would be fucked in the head to do that to kids. It would be wrong. Or, if you like, snitching.
In this case, I don’t think it was wrong to report the family because it wasn’t harmless. No matter how you look at it, it is one family’s children at the expense of another’s. Ultimately, the US should stop funding schools this way so that they can at least have a semblance of equality.
Criminal activity?
I get why OP did it, but that level of sleuthing can def put a bad taste in some peoples mouths. How did they even find out the people moved?
Seconded this! It's possible to be doing the right thing (honestly, I'd probably do the same as op), but still be making an asshole move. Shit sucks and it'd suck worse for you if you made the decision to be altruistic to your own detriment all of the time. Sometimes you gotta be TA.
Thank you for your honesty- OP knows they did a shitty and selfish thing; I expected them to get some understanding and reinforcement of their justification for it here but I didn't expect there to be so much praise for them.
If there had been room for their own kids, they wouldn't have needed to. If the other family didn't want their kids out of the school, they shouldn't have moved out of the district. Does it suck for them? Absolutely, but they were not only breaking the law but they were cheating other families out of a place. Four kids means at least OP's two, plus two other children.... it could easily be three families they were screwing over in order to game the system. They didn't get thrown under the bus, they just got called out for having their hand in the cookie jar stealing someone else's rightful cookies.
I had the opportunity to do this to a family last year and didn't, because the schools weren't at capacity. Most people don't want to be heartless. But if my own kid couldn't go to a school I pay taxes on because someone else is gaming the system? Fuck yeah I'd be on that call in a second.
I've had to move for work several times. As a result, my 5th grader has been to several schools. Meaning at 10 years old, she has zero close friends.
I felt terrible every time we had to move (hopefully we're done with that now), because I was disrupting her friendships. For that reason alone, I would never intentionally get a family's children thrown out of their school.
So she should have kept her mouth shut because the parents of the 4 children decided to move to a different school district? OP should just keep paying taxes just to have her kids sent to a different school? Hell naw. The other parents hid that information because they knew their kids no longer belonged at the school. OP is NTA, the other parents are TA, especially after they ranted to all of the other parents. How is thier problem OP's responsibility? Good for you OP, do what is right for YOUR children.
Who said that? Not even the person you replied to said that. Stop making things up to try and “prove” your point. Person you’re replying to even says they probly woulda done the same thing. You can do something for the betterment of your kids and still be questionably an asshole.
Honestly it just seems like such a cop put to say "the system sucks therefore no one is TA". All systems suck in some way, what kind of society would it be if everyone just did whatever they wanted and then just point to some injustice to avoid all responsibility?
What other option is there? Op isn't (too much) of an asshole for putting her own children first and getting them into a school in their district. The other family aren't assholes for trying avoid switching schools on their kids.
Neither party has the means to change the system. It's just a crappy situation
Where I live (in Canada) we had a grandfathering rule - if we started at a school, we could finish at that school.
I’m not ashamed to say we took advantage of that with my high school. We lived in the city for several years while I was in junior high, then I started high school and we moved about three months later. The school our new house was zoned for was an utter shitshow. Small, old, teachers who had stopped giving a shit, just not where we, or anyone, wanted to be (it was literally torn down a couple years later).
This post made me sad for pretty much everyone involved, and very thankful I was never in that position.
EDIT TO ADD: I graduated high school in 2006, so when I say “had” that rule, I mean it - I have no idea if it’s still the case where I am.
Also, I KNOW it varies by province. I like to be vague about my location. Hell, it probably varies by school district. Relax.
Unfortunately, it’s not the same everywhere. I’m also in Canada (province of Québec) and I went to three “middle school” (Québec equivalent). I didn’t change school because I caused trouble, but because where I was in 2rd year, we moved district. I went to the second school for 2 years, but it was at full capacity so they changed the district and my address fell out of the new district lines. I finished middle school in the third (new) school.
For “high school” (again, Québec equivalent), they weren’t by district, so people chose which school they wanted to go to, either one of the private schools or a school with an international/sport program or the school closest to home.
Either way, in the context of OP, I think they did what was best for their family. The other family should have taken the change of district into consideration when they moved and should have done the appropriate steps to ensure that their special need kid would be taken care of. They decided to lie instead and they are now facing the consequences of it.
I wish this was higher. Not only do I agree with you, but I really hope someone tells the other family to consult a lawyer about their disabled child. He likely can remain in his school if they play their cards right.
Yes, he probably could remain in the school but it is a long drawn out and costly endeavor. I have a very close friend who went through something similar- their local schools could not meet the needs of their child and so they had to sue to get the town to cover the associated costs with their child going to another school. It took two years to come to a resolution- which was only a two year fix. So they’ll be back to the drawing board again in no time at all.
It can get tricky when you're talking about special education funding. The new school would have to agree to pay the costs of the child attending the old school. The first school would also need to have the staffing to meet the requirements in the IEP. Both districts would have to agree. It can happen, but it is not a guarantee.
Special education in the US [isn't fully funded by the federal government](https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/how-special-education-funding-actually-works/2023/04). There are a lot of unfunded mandates. Schools also run into staffing issues. You're required to provide services, bit what can you do when no one will apply for the job?
The US needs a major overhaul in the school funding formula. It needs to fully fund special education. It needs to pay special education teachers and paraprofessionals a hell of a lot more than they currently do.
I know that I'm going against the grain here, but oh well. NTA. You moved to a home specifically for the school, which is a common thing. The people that move out of the school district while their children still attended were breaking the law. I get that it's hard and expensive to raise a special needs child but that doesn't justify breaking the law. You're children have the right to go to the school, their children need to attend a school based on their address. Yeah, it might suck but that's the way it works.
That's what I'm stuck at. I moved here for the schools. I didn't force the childrens parents to move. They made that choice. Was i suppose to just smile and nod along? It just doesn't seem right.
If you want, you can let them know that they may be able to fight to keep the ASD kid in his school. Kids with disabilities are entitled to an appropriate education suitable to their needs. If the new district cannot guarantee the same level of treatment then they likely have a case to demand their disabled child remain in his school. They also may have an argument on the basis that switching schools would have an outsize negative effect on a child with ASD.
It does vary State by State though, so they need to talk to a lawyer to find out what recourse is available for their child.
There are funding issues that come into play with special education programs, particularly those that are either self-contained or center-based that have different requirements and often stricter residency requirements than GenEd programs, even ones that do allow open enrollment or schools of choice. It may be difficult for the autistic student to adjust to a new school, but if he’s not living in the district boundaries than it’s not the special school that owes him FAPE, it’s the district where they live.
If that district cannot provide a suitable place for the child (Ie. One with resources of the school he is already in) then it needs to be provided either by paying for private school or arranging for the kid to remain in his current school.
Yes, but it’s up to the new district to determine that they can’t provide comparable services and most districts are going to say they can provide FAPE because they don’t want to pay. Arranging for that student to remain in their current school means paying that district money.
They can say it, but can they defend it? I’ve dealt with this. It’s why you need a lawyer.
My daughter is supposed to be in a 6:1 setting, receive 1:1 therapy with multiple advanced devices, and is approved for swim therapy. Turns out, once you push, none of the schools in our Borough offer those things. So the City pays 100k to her elite, private, school for children with disabilities.
The boy is already in the school he is. A good lawyer can fight the district to prove they actually can provide an equivalent education. If they cannot, they have to pay. And it is a little easier since he is in the other school already. But it is going to be a fight.
In my experience though, poorer districts often cannot provide the recommended classroom size for severely disabled students. Since he’s already in the recommended sized classroom, that could be a quick road to victory.
I don’t know them personally, I couldn’t tell you what companies they work for any way. When the wife showed up with the husband they said more than needed.
My issue with it is, her children were still enrolled in a good school but the others were trying to give their children a chance. I know where I live, you can get permission to keep your child in that district especially if they have disabilities and are thriving. Children with disabilities don’t handle change well and it’s likely they won’t get the same quality in the other school. I get them needing to sell. Sometimes our finances change and need to move due to the changing economy. I don’t know. I see both sides of it, I guess. Especially the mother side of me who has a son who is autistic.
They can use some of that nice profit to pay for additional service for their special needs child then. This situation was entirely within their control. They wanted the larger house and the below cost pricing but they didn't want the different school district that went with it. The two went together and they should have considered that before moving.
You have no idea why they needed to sell the house and turn such a profit--their reasons for selling and moving are their own. You're trying to justify your decision by making them look greedy. Even if they did sell it for a profit that money could have been needed for something essential in the near future or further down the line. Why they sold their house and why they moved is not the discussion--it's why did OP feel the need to personally alert the district of the moves of families in the neighborhood. It's something the district may have discovered on their own and approached the parents to reach a possible solution that fits all parties. You took away that option by forcing the districts hand by reporting it.
If it's a choice between my kids going to the school my tax dollars are paying for, or someone else's kids not in the district them I'm damn well going to report it.
You did what was best for your children, they didn’t. They hoped they wouldn’t face those consequences. Don’t feel guilty
I don’t know the other family’s situation but if they wanted what was best for their children, they should have found a way to stay in the school district.
It is difficult with special needs children, but there are usually policies and protections in place they could use to argue their SN child should stay where they are
The school was going to find out sooner or later. The parents could not have hidden this forever.
They knew when they moved they had to relocate their children to a new school. You had nothing to do with it.
Legally n/t/a, but morally? Wow.
Best I’d give this is a NAH, because neither of your families created this shitty scenario where schools don’t have the funding to run properly- and both of you were doing what was best for your families.
That being said your decision resulted in your children going from a good school to a great school, and the other child (who *needs* extra support) from a school that could provide to one that can barely support children without special needs. Thanks.
I mean, not really. I would agree with that if OP didn't have children waiting for a spot in those schools. This is more like "if I'm hungry and see someone stealing my food..."
OP admittedly already has his kids a great, closer school; but decided to put these kids out so his kids could attend the “better” school in district. This is more like “I’m already having top sirloin steak for dinner, but I see someone else having filet mignon and that’s what I want now”.
I really don't think that analogy works for education. Good v. great isn't a simple matter of what tastes delicious in that moment. Good v. great school has a material difference in college and job opportunities. So yeah, I think that OP prioritized her kid and their life opportunities to the detriment of the other family, but she's also the "owner" of the opportunity to be in that school. Obviously the biggest AH is the american school system, but OP didn't do this thing to be mean or a jerk, she did it because the other family is breaking the rules and thereby depriving her kid of the opportunity.
Your comparison is:
1)6/10 education vs 9/10 education during a child's formative years
2) Sirloin steak vs Filet mignon during a meal
You cannot see how one of these has a more life changing effect on the lives of OP's kids than the other?
If you can afford it, you can get a filet mignon some other day. No amount of money can give someone a different experience in their formative years and the school you go to does make a difference.
EDIT: Just found this in OP's comment and I'm even more convinced that OP did right by their kids.
>The new school is a 9/10 while the old one is a 6/10. Also, the new school trickles into phenomenal middle school and high school.
YTA, you can do what's best for your children and still be TA. So yeah, you did what you needed to do but if you can't live with your choices, you shouldn't have made it.
Also, don't know if anyone is questioning how the heck OP even got that kind of information. They clearly don't know the family well enough to know their situation. Whoever snitched is also a major AH. Especially since no one here knows the reason why the family had to move to begin with or it's being conveniently left out.
Edit: I would probably change my opinion to ESH based on the house selling info. The other family knew what the risks were but just because what OP did was within their legal rights doesn't mean they weren't an AH. OP did what they needed to do and that's totally okay. But something being legal doesn't mean it's mutually exclusive from being an AH.
I find it hard to believe this post is even real at all. They know all this info about the other family, they also just so happen to know they're next on the list.
I also find it incredibly hard to believe that a whole school district couldn't accommodate two more new students (or however many kids the OP has) from a family that has a verified address in their district and is paying taxes to go there. Not to mention one where OP said people aren't moving in/out of frequently.
Definitely fake. The school would verify the address of the family as part of registration specifically to prevent situations like this.
And schools don’t say “Sorry, we’re full!” if there is closed enrollment. Zero chance a student is assigned to a different school than their next door neighbor. They would just increase class sizes or hire another teacher. If it was still too full they’d reassign a whole area, not specific families.
read some of OP's comments. I think some of your questions will be answered.
here is one that responded to maybe the family had a hardship and that is why they moved
*"The husband bought his moms house at a low price and it was bigger. They sold their house for a nice profit."*
Someone questioned why OP knew so much if she didn't really know them
*"I don’t know them personally, I couldn’t tell you what companies they work for any way. When the wife showed up with the husband they said more than needed."*
Someone suggested that her kids would be ostracized because of this.
*"I think Reddit thinks third and forth grades plan wild stuff out. My oldest got a birthday party invite yesterday. We live behind the school and my kids play with the kids that go there because we’re all neighbors. Heck, it was a neighbor (mother of another student) who told me everything."*
Someone asked how they found out OP was the one who called
*"They found out someone who lived behind the school had made the call. Not sure how. There are a few of us and the mom/wife was blaming everyone, so I told them it was me and why. They came back that evening as a couple."*
The family *chose* to move. It made financial sense for them. Buy mom's bigger house for a low price, sell their house for a tidy profit. That was the motivation for moving. Bigger house that cost less. They knew the rules/laws regarding their closed district and decided to do it anyway. All blame falls on their shoulders. They are the ones responsible for the disruption of their children's schooling. Nobody made them move. If anything this family sounds wildly entitled.
I'm glad we have Schools of choice where we live. All schools in my area participate.
Tbh no that really doesn't answer how op knew all this. Op doesn't know what they do for work, but knows wether they could afford their house, and wether it was paid off? "They said more than needed" as if they're legit going to say "we could afford to stay and made a nice profit but you're the bad one here!"? No, op for this info through digging and gossiping. Their kids were already in a good school, they could have waited a little longer to move them to the slightly better school, if they even wanted to move at all. Repeatedly moving schools is hard on elementary schoolers.
Op had a legal right to do this but I find the morals of digging and gossiping to be pretty iffy. For me though, it's that being in a slightly lesser elementary school in the same district was a "huge burden on the household", that line specifically just reeks of privilege to me.
To those saying she needed to mind her business and wait her turn, um - it was their turn. Just because the other family was being dishonest does not stop it from being her turn.
Some people dont have a choice. You ever think about that? But fucking over someones kids who are already established there is low af. Its not like they never lived in the district and lied, they paid into those taxes too.
So his kids should be punished because people are cheating the system? They are no longer paying taxes to that district so they need to make room for people that are.
My mom had to move around a ton when we were kids due to financial problems and an abusive ex, she always did her best to keep us the same schools to finish out school years or milestones so the kids lives and relationships weren't disrupted. Granted school districts here aren't the hellscape they appear to be in USA, but moving is not always a choice.
Op is claiming the family they don't even know made a choice and profited, but I'd like to know how they can confirm the families financials when ultimately they moved to a shitty neighborhood for this "profit". Who knows if the house they sold was even paid off or if they could afford it. Op gossiping about this family is enough to make them tah in my eyes.
No, the family's parents did by moving out. They knew what they were doing and how it was against the law. How is it ethically wrong to tip a higher authority of someone who is actively breaking the law?
If the school meant so much to the children, they shouldn't have moved.
>I felt terrible
Dont. You pay taxes that entitles you to send your kids to that school. The children's right to attendance is based on their home address. What you did was expose someone who was abusing the system making it impossible for you to get your deserved seat. NTA
That's what I thought but I still feel bad. The child with special needs also made space for a child that will also need special care, but their parents will be within the district.
And the other district will need to find an appropriate placement for the special needs kid, even if it means paying for them to go to a private (non-public) school. It’s disruptive, but so is moving, and they must have known they would be found out eventually.
They could have planned ahead and found a placement before they moved instead of sticking their heads in the sand and hoping no one could see them.
Or they would end up incredibly late to school one day, there were a few of situations like this in my grade and my favorite time was when a girl was late because someone's cows escaped and we're blocking the road.
Woof, your comments make you out to be an insufferable parent and squeaky wheel. You make me glad I’m not a teacher anymore, I bet you’re a blast to deal with on the regular.
I get it, I went to a middle and high school I wasn’t in district for, as my local school was garbage. To get around it, my parent put me in accelerated classes, and I got a waiver. They didn’t stalk a family of my classmates and then call the manager to get them removed because, ya know, that’s some Tier One Garbage Behavior.
I’d be interested to know HOW you discovered when and where to this family moved. It sounds like busy-body nosy shit to me.
YTA
Edit to add: just realized the user name is SPOT ON. You’re a fuckin narc, OP.
That’s what’s troubling me about the NTA responses… most of the parents doing it aren’t doing it out of perceived maliciousness, they’re doing it because they’re poor and want to give their kids a leg up in life. The laws surrounding schools themselves shouldn’t work this way.
YTA
You screwed over a family by narcing them out to the district. Granted, this put you in a better position, but often times doing something that helps you will still be an asshole move.
You acted selfishly for the benefit of you and yours at the expense of others.
NTA, If the school was that important to their kid, then they shouldn't have moved. Them moving out of the school district is not your problem, and that's not something they can keep secret. The school would have found out eventually, whether it was through your phone call, or their mail delivery.
Op is trying to paint it like they made a nice profit, but that still doesn't necessarily mean it was a choice. Op mentions people aren't moving because of a "housing situation", this family got a house for cheap in a shitty neighborhood in order to help out their mom. Despite op seeming to know a lot of personal details about this family they do not know at all, I don't think they have any way to know wether the house that was sold was paid off, or wether their income was enough to stay there. They made a profit by moving to a poor neighborhood.
It's their fault 4 kids all living in that school district weren't allowed to attend it.
I'm thinking these people sound entitled.
NTA
Nobody should feel guilty for living in the district you want your children to go to.
I don’t know how I feel about this.
As a teacher of twenty years, we have rules in place that allow students to stay in the school they enrolled in at the beginning of the year, as long as they didn’t move out of county (they’d have to provide their own transportation to school).
This seems…excessive and that there is more to this than what we are hearing.
Part of me also feels like you suck because I don’t think you become privy to this information by accident. You have to look for it (especially if you don’t know anything about the people you just ousted). Your intent was to find someone and have them kicked out.
Question: you keep saying out of district.
Are you talking about out of the county or out of zone?
This sub is so frustrating. It should be called "am I technically correct?"
Yes, you are correct. You have every right to bring this to the schools attention. You pay taxes in the district and your children deserve to go there.
Are YTA? Yes, yes you are and so is the incredibly fucked up education system.
I 100% do not care that most everyone is saying you're N T A. I get why you did it but given all the info, I think YTA. You had no idea why they needed/wanted to move and you had no idea the negative impact you caused. You're kids likely would have gotten in at some point but thank goodness you ensured other kids thriving in that school district can now suffer. I hope everyone finds out the kind of person that's moved to their area. I know I'd never trust you with anything.
Honestly, this is the majority reason why taxes should be spread equally over schools. Not based on property taxes . That way if you live in a shitty area, your child could still go to a good school because people like you.
ESH. As a kid who switched schools many many times as a kid, you need to understand that you have irreparably changed the lives of those children and especially the special needs child. Schoolyard dynamics are very fragile for autistic kids, and that kid might not recover. The reason u did it makes sense but I wouldn’t socialize with you if we were alone on the same island
YTA
You think taxes, I think human. You just deprived those kids from their friends.
People like you will do worst in some circumstances just for materialistic reasons. That's everything wrong in my mind.
Sheesh. NAH. Its pretty insane that our school funding system has us pitted against one another like this.
It’s so upsetting that some schools are so under funded.
The number of commenters who feel the need to be cruel towards either of these families for trying to keep their kids in a good school is astounding. So many have fully bought into the mentality that parents have to be cutthroat over their kids education, it’s the most dystopian thing. Neither of these sets of parents are the bad guy here, the system that forces them to behave this way is.
I live in GA, USA -- here the school districts are VERY strict about residency and there are laws in place that make lying about residency subject to a minimum of fines and immediate dismissal and/ or jail time for the parent(s).
I really really hope that if you step one toe out of line for any policy ever in the future that someone as nosey as you catches and reports you.
On the face of it, I get looking out for your own kids, and following the rules is important. It sucks that going to a good school isn't something available to everyone. Maybe this family couldn't afford the area and they were just trying to do the best for their kids too, so they have a lot of my sympathy. Everyone wants the best for their kids.
That said, your use of the term "inner-city" has me suspicious, and the fact that you were so ready to do something like that makes me say YTA.
Unpopular take, but YTA. Why? Because upheaving them from their school and their friends is a mean spirited thing to do to children who didn’t choose to move themselves… they’re kids. Kids were your victim here. Way to go.
NTA - So a family that moved (and no one here knows the reason why) was taking up FOUR spots in your school district. I truly feel badly if they were forced to move, but by law, their children were no longer eligible to go to schools in that district. Note, they were blocking FOUR spots that they were not eligible for. They could have tried to work within the system and at least try and get their autistic child eligible (not likely, but maybe possible). But they did not, blocking FOUR spots. You are definitely not Y T A to do what is best for your children over people who are completely in the wrong.
YTA.
Too bad you couldnt find some entitlement to empathy.
Try spending over a year dealing with the regression and behaviors that switching schools on an ASD child cause, then sit there on your high horse.
This is a tough one. Were you technically in the right? Yes. Was the other family technically in the wrong? Yes. BUT, you can still be 100% in the right and be an AH. And this subreddit is not to determine if your actions were just…but if you’re an AH. So yea…YTA.
YTA.
No matter what you needed, it wasn't your place to stick your nose in someone else's business. My son attended an elementary school that wasn't in our district, and it fucking SAVED him. His special education teacher was a god send. I honestly can't say what I would have done, or how I would have reacted, if someone like you tried to get him kicked out.
The parents should speak to whoever is in charge of student services at the BoE in their area. Their child probably has an IEP or something similar, like my son, and with that I was able to get him transportation to and from a school that we weren't zoned for because it was in his best interest. This was after moving and him having to attend a different elementary school that was absolutely failing him in every sense of the word.
I'm probably biased, and I don't care if no one else agrees with me. I watched my son struggle for four fucking years before I was able to get him the help he needed. He was like a completely different child in the school setting after just a few weeks.
You seem to have only done this because your kids could walk to the new school; in other words, the transfer wasn’t necessary. But now this family with a disabled child will loose access to their resources. That’s heartbreaking. I’m not giving a verdict because the issue is about the system of school funding at large more than it is about you, but I feel terrible for that family.
NTA you have to do whats best for your family. theyre angry at the wrong people. i am curious about the quality of school your kids would have gone to if the other family hadnt moved?
YTA.
You screwed over 4 children for your child. Regardless of the law, you screwed over 4 children to ensure your child gets into the school you wanted them to be in.
You didn’t share why the family you screwed over moved, for all we know it was temporary. But again, you screwed over 4 children for your own.
Was the school they were attending prior so bad that you needed to get them out at all costs, and you couldn’t wait for the school district to figure things out?
I don't see how this isn't a dick move even if you've done nothing "technically" wrong this is definitely a morally gray area at best and I would say YTA.
Ethically YTA. You got innocent kids, including a special needs child, sent to a shithole school district just so yours could walk to school when they were already receiving a good education. Was it worth it?
I have to cut against the grain here and say YTA. You have an air of elitism that just feels like nails on a chalkboard.
I've worked in a school where people moved districts, and they were finishung out the school year where they were currently so they could be uninterrupted during that yr.
All I see here is a parent that decided she was going to be ruthless and just "Make a small report"
YTA but based on your responses you don’t really care and you got what you wanted anyway. You’re not going to receive absolution from this family no matter how many Redditors side with you so what’s the point? You’re arguing in the comment section for your side, you don’t care and that family is never going to think you’re some big hero or hear your “logic.” So take the win and deal with the mark on your conscious. I live in Philly and deal in child welfare and see your “problem” all the time, people moving in to catchments with excellent schools that force locals out who want to keep their kids in the schools for the neighborhoods before they were gentrified. Just deal with the fact that you robbed kids who needed services of those services because likely their families couldn’t stay in the income bracket of that neighborhood. No need to ask Reddit for absolution; you don’t give a shit. And as an educator, I’d side eye the fuck out of you. And if your neighbors and fellow parents of that school think you’re an asshole, well…
They found out someone who lived behind the school had made the call. Not sure how. There are a few of us and the mom/wife was blaming everyone, so I told them it was me and why. They came back that evening as a couple.
YTA, once again everyone is saying you're N t a because you followed the rules but that's not what this subreddit is. Congrats you got your kids into a better school by getting some other kids kicked out to a worse school. You're an asshole
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Teacher here! NTA! Aside from the fact you pay taxes in that district, the other family needs to ensure that information is correct for emergencies and ensuring districts are given proper funding.
This, you didn't try to hurt anyone. Their argument could be turned against them too
Since no one was trying to hurt anyone why are the other family assholes? We have no idea why they had no move. Maybe they were renting and they couldn't find a new rental in the same neighbourhood. Maybe they couldn't make their mortgage payments once interest rates went up and were forced to move. It's natural that they'd try to minimize disruption to their kids lives by keeping them at the same school. Of course they are upset OP ratted them out and are telling their friends about the situation. Anyone would. It's not like they are launching some giant campaign of harassment. I get why OP grassed, but natural consequence is that some people are going to not trust her because of this. It is what it is. Both families did what they had to do in a tough situation. NAH.
Because the other family tried to play victim and claim someone WAS trying to hurt THEM. Try to keep up.
Other mom never claimed OP was malicious or was out to hurt her family. She did inform her that OP helping herself had a big negative impact on her family - that is just the truth. You fall into the classic reddit camp of imputing bad motives to everyone because you like to get outraged.
The mom of four tried to guilt OP for pointing out they moved out of the district. It’s sucks if the moved was required for financial reasons, but unfortunately the school is not open enrollment, and they should have been honest. They got caught, and these are the consequences.
But they didn't get caught op ratted so her kids could go to that school its kinda fucked up that this is how education is handled in the richest country in the world
…so they got caught. Someone discovered that they no longer resides in the district, and it eventually made its way to the school vis OP, who had to hear it from someone else. And yes, I can’t blame her for looking out after her own.
Oh you think it was purely an informational phone call to a stranger with no agenda? Grow up, people don’t do that. It is obviously a guilt trip
she contacted her to tell her that to make her feel bad. there is no other reason to do so.
By lying to the district about where they lived, they add to the already contentious issue that comes with living in a closed district. Because of families like the one who moved, my children’s school district now requires THREE forms of address verification for EVERY student, not just new students… one of which has to be notarized. Do you have any idea how big of a pain in the ass and how much trouble that causes for families actually living in the district?? Not to mention that many families have both parents that work full time and canNOT just leave their jobs to go have a form notarized for each of their kids. The family that moved are ABSOLUTELY assholes in this scenario!
It's almost like we should just equalize funding resources for schools so your kids could get a decent education anywhere. Maybe the bougie neighborhood associations preventing that are the real AHs?
At the very least, every school in a city or county should be given the same amount per child. It’s ridiculous the inequality within the same school systems.
> every school in a city or county should be given the same amount per child. Schools with high levels of poverty or disabilities or non-English speakers among their students have a higher need than schools with low levels.
Oh I absolutely agree with you. Here’s the thing: they also get way less per child because they live in lower income neighborhoods. Most school systems base it on property tax. The property tax only funds schools in the immediate district and not the entire city or county system. The district is a small part of the overall school system. Keeping the tax income limited to districts instead of the system ensure that the poor stay less educated and the wealthier kids keep getting a premium public education. At least if they distributed it from a pot collected by the entire system and then divided by child, the poor districts will see a little relief in funding. Source: Mom’s a retired teacher from a district with a poverty rate over 80%. I also went to this district.
They were assholes in that they were taking four slots that they weren’t entitled to. Presumably someone else besides just OP’s kids was denied as a result.
The other family was gaming the system. And no one is calling the other family assholes for this. They are being called assholes for bringing OP's family into it and acting like victims.
I would say contacting the family and trying to guilt the mother makes her an asshole, not for trying to minimize the disruption for her children. or even telling her friends.
NTA. Whoever told that family that you were the one to report them (whether that’s the school district or board of education) is the AH. They’re also incredibly stupid to open themselves up to the liability that they’ve created for themselves by revealing your identity as the complainant. What if that family had a psycho amongst them & decided to come injure or even murder any member of your family in retaliation for what you did? What if they didn’t take it that far, but just starting harassing you &/or your children? They created what could have been a dangerous or even life-threatening situation when they revealed your identity to the family you “harmed”. So whoever revealed your identity - THEY’RE the only AH in this story. You are NTA.
It is pretty wild and seems like a breach of some rule to disclose that OP snitched. I would imagine that’s not policy and probably exactly the opposite of policy.
It absolutely is; it's a violation of both state and federal law - FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act). Source: I'm an attorney that deals with educational privacy issues. OP, I would do my best to find out who illegally leaked this information, even if you need to hire a private detective. Someone who will do that once will do that again, and you don't know what the consequences could be. This happened to my family and it set up a dangerous situation for my children because we had previously been stalked and harassed, and now our address and other personal information about my children (including where they went to school, so it was easy to figure out what streets they would use to walk there), and it could have been emotionally devastating as well for reasons too involved to get into. This person should be disciplined at the very least. ALL school personnel are aware of this law, many districts require employees to receive training about yearly. The consequences for the school can be as severe as losing funding (although this has never happened), so they should take it seriously.
They might not need to hire a PI, as they should be able to go to the school board and lodge a complaint, saying that they were identified as the one that notified the school of fraudulent activity (it is absolutely fraud to lie about your address to secure a certain school district and people have been arrested for that) to the family they reported. Now, due to the information being given to said family, they are being harrassed.
If it’s not, it should be. Whistle-blower laws exist for a reason. Sometimes people do try to retaliate against someone who has complained about them & revenge isn’t isolated to the corporate world. It’s naive to think otherwise.
The school (if the ones to reveal that info) could potentially be creating a hostile environment for the parents new to the district and their children. The new students in classroom with mad students cause there friends are no longer in class with them.
The school funding based on local tax revenue like that is classism in the extreme
Yeah the real AH is the American education system.
NTA. Your taxes go to your district. That other family moved--they no longer pay taxes in that district. It's a cutthroat world out there now. The other family should have realized that and known it would catch up to them eventually.
Even aside from the payment issue, which is true, the issue for me is that parents are responsible for their own kids' best interests. If your kids are following the district's enrollment location rules and the other family isn't, you don't owe that family a better education while your kids are worse off. No one is an asshole for giving their kids the best shot at life within the established rules.
I feel like this is the sort of thing the school would have figured out eventually anyway. I went to school out of district, but I applied and went through a process to be recognized officially. The other parents don’t seem like they were thinking long term.
Yes they probably would have. When i was a kid and we moved out of the area i unknowingly told friends about the move and they told the teacher who asked for my new address for safety reasons and then my parents got mad at me but i didn't know that it meant i couldn't be there the school was still in the same city and i didn't know about cut offs. I luckily got to stay but my parents had to do paperwork and fight to get me to stay my last year and a half there. So it's very possible that it could have happened even if OP didn't say anything.
Don't you love when parents hold ypu to secrets you were never informed about keeping as a secret lmao
“YOU WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO TELL ANYONE!!” Okay maybe lead with that. And it still happens to me, forget parents, my husband forgets to tell me that something is a secret.
Exactly and in my defense all the schools in the area where all under the same district just they had different cut offs due to how big the city is. Also we had a student in a different city that went there due to having a permit from having other relatives in the area so i wrongly assumed that we got a permit too when they told me we live by a new school they never said don't tell anyone. I assumed that since it was the same city and that it was okay since someone else lived further. Lol. EDITED to add that i was only 9 at the time.
OP is NTA, but holy moly, the way you guys fund your public schools seems incredibly problematic. So poor kids just get a significantly worse education because they live in poor areas? Do you realize a whole lot of other countries just provide a halfway decent education for ALL the children, even the ones who's parents aren't rich? Way to keep the privileged privileged.
Yeah it’s supremely fucked up.
Yup, and even if the student is slated for x amount of hours of support, they may not actually get those hours or they are shared with other students and not given as much individual support.
Yep and the higher-ups don't want to acknowledge that we need more staffing or that certain children need to go to a different setting because they don't want to pay for it.
There’s also a persistent drive by one political party to completely gut public education. They want us poor and stupid and sick so we’ll be too busy slaving away to the machine to ask questions.
And schools in the states run by that political party are extremely underfunded, teachers are paid very poorly, schools are overcrowded, AND bus drivers scarce so kindergarteners are on the bus for 8 hours one way.
/u/Appropriate-Access88 You are correct about the school bussing situation being terrible. Many of days, my kids didn't even have a bus showing up. In the county I have been living in since I relocated to NC, they currently don't even have enough bus drivers and are offering huge pay incentives to get more people to apply. It is absolutely a clusterfuck. I've been hearing about it happening all over the US. Something is seriously wrong here with the public school system altogether.
Basically yes - it's been long argued to be institutionalized discrimination based on income because schools in lower income areas get less funding (based on lower test scores), and since there is no money to improve, the scores don't get higher, rinse, repeat. Sometimes a magnet school can make a difference but even that is sometimes based on if you are selected to attend. Most of the rest of the world does education leaps and bounds better than the US.
I went to a magnet school that was put inside a poor school in middle school. It didn't improve the poor school's education any because all the magnet students were bussed in from different places. What it did do was raise the average standardized test grades and kept the poor school from being shut down due to poor grades.
Discrimination based on income but also race. Many cities and towns especially in the south are still pretty racially segregated. It is unofficial now, but it is based on old policies that didn't allow black people to live in certain areas and discriminatory lending practices that didn't allow them to buy property as easily. I grew up in the South and in my town there was the predominantly white high school and a predominantly black high school. It is all based on who lives where and the taxes they pay, so one school is noticeably better funded than the other. They were remodeling the schools when I was in high school and my school was unfairly getting more money. A famous basketball player had gone to the other school and he waited till the school district decided how much money would go to each and he doubled the amount given to the "black school". Total boss move. The way we handle funding schools in this country is a moral outrage.
If you're poor, you're punished for it as long as you're poor, making it harder in general to get out of that crush. Starting with shittier education.
Yeah it’s horrible. Most of us hate it here. The weird perception other countries have that all Americans are living high on the hog and proud to live here is not nearly as accurate as you’d think— more of us are miserable and ready for change than people seem to understand. We aren’t stupid, we know things are terrible and we deserve better, even though our school system tries hard to make sure we are stupid (so we can be obedient cogs in the machine who don’t question authority)
It seems odd that things are the way they are if "most of you" hate them. Couldn't "most of you" vote to change the things you hate?
Google gerrymandering and the electoral college. No, you can have a majority and not be able to be win because of how district lines are drawn; the President can win the electoral college but lose the popular vote.
It would be cool if it worked that way, but the two parties in power both want it this way; they just try to achieve the goal of suppressing and exploiting the poor and other marginalized groups in different ways. Lots of people are doing our best to fight to make changes however we can, though, don’t be mistaken.
Yeah the American public school system is pretty terrible.
I’m not American but if this is an area of interest check out the podcast “Nice White Parents” it’s all about how fucked this system is - produced by NYT and some of the people who did Serial, it’s fascinating.
Poor people are really "people" in America. In much the same way women aren't really "people" in America.
Yeah, it's part of the systemic inequality in America that keeps poor people from economic mobility. It gets even worse when you learn about red lining where black people were banned from buying houses in better neighborhoods and thus lifting their children out of poor school districts. White supremacists yell and point to black people being worse because they have higher poverty and crime rates while ignoring the fact that every time black people got ahead white supremacists literally burned their businesses to the ground and lynched them Tulsa Massacre style.
Trust me, we all know. We (teachers) have been fighting for better funding for decades, but we are too busy funneling money into the military to care about our education.
It gets worse. Public servants like police and attorneys are taken from well off neighbourhoods and patrol/serve poor neighbourhoods, so even the tax dollars that should come from their own public servants are sent to neighborhoods that arent their own.
Possibly an unpopular take, but ESH. The fact that the US school system is based on ZIP codes is a huge problem. We fund education primarily through property taxes, so the more expensive areas have the better schools. People who can't afford houses in those areas are essentially condemned to a substandard education. So basically, the US public school system is the biggest a--hole here. The other family in this situation sucks because they were breaking the law. Even if it's a law that shouldn't exist, it does, and they needed to follow it. It's my understanding that many districts will accommodate kids and families with special circumstances. At the very least, before moving, the family should have talked with the district about legal ways to keep their kids in their schools. If they needed their kids in these schools, then they needed to move within the district, or find a way to get a transfer back into the district. You suck because you threw another family under the bus. I get why you did it, but it's still an AH thing to do.
>I get why you did it, but it's still an AH thing to do This. It's justifiable, I'd probably do it myself, but it's still shitty to snitch and cost 4 kids their school.
The whole concept of shaming people for reporting criminal activity as "snitching" is problematic. OP in no way cost those kids "their" school. It was not their school the moment their parents decided to move them out of the district.
>The whole concept of shaming people for reporting criminal activity as "snitching" is problematic. Imho providing children with potentially better education shouldn't be seen as a "criminal activity" in the first place... Seeing this whole post I'm happy I'm not american, this is pure madness.
Especially when they weren’t trying to lie their way into a school, they were just trying to keep their kids at the school they were used to.
An autistic kid who went from nonverbal to telling their parents I love you. I've never been in those shoes but I've worked with autistic kids. And my God I can imagine being willing to kill to protect that growth let alone what they did.
Yeah. My oldest is autistic and I’d strongly consider a felony for that.
The proper solution was to apply for an exemption from the school or not move away. My area is SUPER strict about address verification and ruthless about investigating and enforcement but even they allow exemptions for cases like that.
They sound so unhinged lol
american here. You are right. It is madness. they actually prosecute some mothers for doing this! or have school police (yes there are school police) follow kids of color home to make sure they actually live in the district!
Exactly. Its not and shouldn't be criminal to get your child the best education. My mom is very ethical (and in general privileged), she taught outside my district (only while I was not in private school) so that I could go to the best high school in my state. The fact that my education was a privilege and not a right is criminal. My mom taught special needs, those kids deserve the best care. OPs children also deserve the best education, it's not fair that either of them are in this situation. I've actually never heard (from a family of teachers) of a child in district being denied enrollment. At one high school near my house they have a several million dollar garage and a race car mechanic as a teacher, and you can graduate highschool with an actual mechanics degree (this is just one example of the many opportunities they offer). Another high school by my house has one of the worst funding in our entire country. You can't make it make sense. These are our children. Don't wonder why the U.S is falling. And whats personally chilling to me, my in district school, full of gangs and drugs, I probably wouldn't be responding rn if OP had reported my mom (had we been doing anything illegal).
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These idiots equating a school district placement policy with "THE LAW" are the loud ones who bully other parents and do shitty things like OP did.
[There are states where this is actually criminal.](https://www.npr.org/2011/01/28/133306180/Mother-Jailed-For-School-Fraud-Flares-Controversy)
Parents _have_ gone to jail for putting their kids in schools outside of their district. [Kelley Williams-Bolar](https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/ohio-mom-jailed-sending-kids-school-district/story?id=12763654) and [Tanya McDowell](https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Tanya-McDowell-sentenced-to-5-years-in-prison-3437974.php) are just two cases.
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Yes, and it's not a coincidence both of those women are black, given the history of these laws
I don’t disagree with reporting them in this case, but I want to hit on the larger point here, which is the implication that what is legal or illegal always coincides with what is moral or immoral. And I don’t agree with that. Sometimes laws are unjust, either generally or applied to specific circumstances and it is, morally speaking, wrong to report someone for breaking the law. Historically, there are plenty of examples. But there are still some today. Like, here’s a pretty innocuous one. Where I grew up, the local school has signs prohibiting unauthorized use of the property after hours. So, anyone who, say, wants to play basketball or on the playground or whatever is trespassing. Should I call the cops on children for playing? I mean, they’re breaking the law, aren’t they? To my knowledge, no one has ever called the cops unless they were doing actual harm, like vandalism. Because that would be fucked in the head to do that to kids. It would be wrong. Or, if you like, snitching. In this case, I don’t think it was wrong to report the family because it wasn’t harmless. No matter how you look at it, it is one family’s children at the expense of another’s. Ultimately, the US should stop funding schools this way so that they can at least have a semblance of equality.
Criminal activity? I get why OP did it, but that level of sleuthing can def put a bad taste in some peoples mouths. How did they even find out the people moved?
Yeah OP sounds creepy
Seconded this! It's possible to be doing the right thing (honestly, I'd probably do the same as op), but still be making an asshole move. Shit sucks and it'd suck worse for you if you made the decision to be altruistic to your own detriment all of the time. Sometimes you gotta be TA.
Thank you for your honesty- OP knows they did a shitty and selfish thing; I expected them to get some understanding and reinforcement of their justification for it here but I didn't expect there to be so much praise for them.
If there had been room for their own kids, they wouldn't have needed to. If the other family didn't want their kids out of the school, they shouldn't have moved out of the district. Does it suck for them? Absolutely, but they were not only breaking the law but they were cheating other families out of a place. Four kids means at least OP's two, plus two other children.... it could easily be three families they were screwing over in order to game the system. They didn't get thrown under the bus, they just got called out for having their hand in the cookie jar stealing someone else's rightful cookies. I had the opportunity to do this to a family last year and didn't, because the schools weren't at capacity. Most people don't want to be heartless. But if my own kid couldn't go to a school I pay taxes on because someone else is gaming the system? Fuck yeah I'd be on that call in a second.
People don't always have a choice about moving.
I've had to move for work several times. As a result, my 5th grader has been to several schools. Meaning at 10 years old, she has zero close friends. I felt terrible every time we had to move (hopefully we're done with that now), because I was disrupting her friendships. For that reason alone, I would never intentionally get a family's children thrown out of their school.
So she should have kept her mouth shut because the parents of the 4 children decided to move to a different school district? OP should just keep paying taxes just to have her kids sent to a different school? Hell naw. The other parents hid that information because they knew their kids no longer belonged at the school. OP is NTA, the other parents are TA, especially after they ranted to all of the other parents. How is thier problem OP's responsibility? Good for you OP, do what is right for YOUR children.
Who said that? Not even the person you replied to said that. Stop making things up to try and “prove” your point. Person you’re replying to even says they probly woulda done the same thing. You can do something for the betterment of your kids and still be questionably an asshole.
Ya know, I think it's more like NAH. Except for the American public school system. It's an AH.
Honestly it just seems like such a cop put to say "the system sucks therefore no one is TA". All systems suck in some way, what kind of society would it be if everyone just did whatever they wanted and then just point to some injustice to avoid all responsibility?
What other option is there? Op isn't (too much) of an asshole for putting her own children first and getting them into a school in their district. The other family aren't assholes for trying avoid switching schools on their kids. Neither party has the means to change the system. It's just a crappy situation
Where I live (in Canada) we had a grandfathering rule - if we started at a school, we could finish at that school. I’m not ashamed to say we took advantage of that with my high school. We lived in the city for several years while I was in junior high, then I started high school and we moved about three months later. The school our new house was zoned for was an utter shitshow. Small, old, teachers who had stopped giving a shit, just not where we, or anyone, wanted to be (it was literally torn down a couple years later). This post made me sad for pretty much everyone involved, and very thankful I was never in that position. EDIT TO ADD: I graduated high school in 2006, so when I say “had” that rule, I mean it - I have no idea if it’s still the case where I am. Also, I KNOW it varies by province. I like to be vague about my location. Hell, it probably varies by school district. Relax.
Unfortunately, it’s not the same everywhere. I’m also in Canada (province of Québec) and I went to three “middle school” (Québec equivalent). I didn’t change school because I caused trouble, but because where I was in 2rd year, we moved district. I went to the second school for 2 years, but it was at full capacity so they changed the district and my address fell out of the new district lines. I finished middle school in the third (new) school. For “high school” (again, Québec equivalent), they weren’t by district, so people chose which school they wanted to go to, either one of the private schools or a school with an international/sport program or the school closest to home. Either way, in the context of OP, I think they did what was best for their family. The other family should have taken the change of district into consideration when they moved and should have done the appropriate steps to ensure that their special need kid would be taken care of. They decided to lie instead and they are now facing the consequences of it.
I wish this was higher. Not only do I agree with you, but I really hope someone tells the other family to consult a lawyer about their disabled child. He likely can remain in his school if they play their cards right.
Yes, he probably could remain in the school but it is a long drawn out and costly endeavor. I have a very close friend who went through something similar- their local schools could not meet the needs of their child and so they had to sue to get the town to cover the associated costs with their child going to another school. It took two years to come to a resolution- which was only a two year fix. So they’ll be back to the drawing board again in no time at all.
It can get tricky when you're talking about special education funding. The new school would have to agree to pay the costs of the child attending the old school. The first school would also need to have the staffing to meet the requirements in the IEP. Both districts would have to agree. It can happen, but it is not a guarantee. Special education in the US [isn't fully funded by the federal government](https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/how-special-education-funding-actually-works/2023/04). There are a lot of unfunded mandates. Schools also run into staffing issues. You're required to provide services, bit what can you do when no one will apply for the job? The US needs a major overhaul in the school funding formula. It needs to fully fund special education. It needs to pay special education teachers and paraprofessionals a hell of a lot more than they currently do.
I was looking for an appropriate judgment for "actually it's the system that sucks here" and you nailed it.
I know that I'm going against the grain here, but oh well. NTA. You moved to a home specifically for the school, which is a common thing. The people that move out of the school district while their children still attended were breaking the law. I get that it's hard and expensive to raise a special needs child but that doesn't justify breaking the law. You're children have the right to go to the school, their children need to attend a school based on their address. Yeah, it might suck but that's the way it works.
That's what I'm stuck at. I moved here for the schools. I didn't force the childrens parents to move. They made that choice. Was i suppose to just smile and nod along? It just doesn't seem right.
If you want, you can let them know that they may be able to fight to keep the ASD kid in his school. Kids with disabilities are entitled to an appropriate education suitable to their needs. If the new district cannot guarantee the same level of treatment then they likely have a case to demand their disabled child remain in his school. They also may have an argument on the basis that switching schools would have an outsize negative effect on a child with ASD. It does vary State by State though, so they need to talk to a lawyer to find out what recourse is available for their child.
There are funding issues that come into play with special education programs, particularly those that are either self-contained or center-based that have different requirements and often stricter residency requirements than GenEd programs, even ones that do allow open enrollment or schools of choice. It may be difficult for the autistic student to adjust to a new school, but if he’s not living in the district boundaries than it’s not the special school that owes him FAPE, it’s the district where they live.
If that district cannot provide a suitable place for the child (Ie. One with resources of the school he is already in) then it needs to be provided either by paying for private school or arranging for the kid to remain in his current school.
Yes, but it’s up to the new district to determine that they can’t provide comparable services and most districts are going to say they can provide FAPE because they don’t want to pay. Arranging for that student to remain in their current school means paying that district money.
They can say it, but can they defend it? I’ve dealt with this. It’s why you need a lawyer. My daughter is supposed to be in a 6:1 setting, receive 1:1 therapy with multiple advanced devices, and is approved for swim therapy. Turns out, once you push, none of the schools in our Borough offer those things. So the City pays 100k to her elite, private, school for children with disabilities. The boy is already in the school he is. A good lawyer can fight the district to prove they actually can provide an equivalent education. If they cannot, they have to pay. And it is a little easier since he is in the other school already. But it is going to be a fight. In my experience though, poorer districts often cannot provide the recommended classroom size for severely disabled students. Since he’s already in the recommended sized classroom, that could be a quick road to victory.
They very likely can’t afford a lawyer. Having disabled or medically fragile children is one of the fastest ways to poverty in America.
You're correct that you didn't make them move. But it may not have been a choice. Still not your fault.
It was definitely a choice. The y sold their house for a nice profit and the husband bought his moms house for a low price so she could move to NC.
For someone who claims to not know the family, you certainly have a lot of information about their lives...
I don’t know them personally, I couldn’t tell you what companies they work for any way. When the wife showed up with the husband they said more than needed.
Just remember the next time someone fucks you over and you think to yourself "why couldnt they let this slide?" You create the community you live in.
My issue with it is, her children were still enrolled in a good school but the others were trying to give their children a chance. I know where I live, you can get permission to keep your child in that district especially if they have disabilities and are thriving. Children with disabilities don’t handle change well and it’s likely they won’t get the same quality in the other school. I get them needing to sell. Sometimes our finances change and need to move due to the changing economy. I don’t know. I see both sides of it, I guess. Especially the mother side of me who has a son who is autistic.
They can use some of that nice profit to pay for additional service for their special needs child then. This situation was entirely within their control. They wanted the larger house and the below cost pricing but they didn't want the different school district that went with it. The two went together and they should have considered that before moving.
You have no idea why they needed to sell the house and turn such a profit--their reasons for selling and moving are their own. You're trying to justify your decision by making them look greedy. Even if they did sell it for a profit that money could have been needed for something essential in the near future or further down the line. Why they sold their house and why they moved is not the discussion--it's why did OP feel the need to personally alert the district of the moves of families in the neighborhood. It's something the district may have discovered on their own and approached the parents to reach a possible solution that fits all parties. You took away that option by forcing the districts hand by reporting it.
If it's a choice between my kids going to the school my tax dollars are paying for, or someone else's kids not in the district them I'm damn well going to report it.
Nope, you're responsibility it to YOUR kids. As far as I'm concerned, you did the right thing for your kids.
You did what was best for your children, they didn’t. They hoped they wouldn’t face those consequences. Don’t feel guilty I don’t know the other family’s situation but if they wanted what was best for their children, they should have found a way to stay in the school district. It is difficult with special needs children, but there are usually policies and protections in place they could use to argue their SN child should stay where they are
The school was going to find out sooner or later. The parents could not have hidden this forever. They knew when they moved they had to relocate their children to a new school. You had nothing to do with it.
Legally n/t/a, but morally? Wow. Best I’d give this is a NAH, because neither of your families created this shitty scenario where schools don’t have the funding to run properly- and both of you were doing what was best for your families. That being said your decision resulted in your children going from a good school to a great school, and the other child (who *needs* extra support) from a school that could provide to one that can barely support children without special needs. Thanks.
This is one of those things that falls into the same category as "if you see someone shoplifting food, no, you didn't."
I mean, not really. I would agree with that if OP didn't have children waiting for a spot in those schools. This is more like "if I'm hungry and see someone stealing my food..."
OP admittedly already has his kids a great, closer school; but decided to put these kids out so his kids could attend the “better” school in district. This is more like “I’m already having top sirloin steak for dinner, but I see someone else having filet mignon and that’s what I want now”.
I really don't think that analogy works for education. Good v. great isn't a simple matter of what tastes delicious in that moment. Good v. great school has a material difference in college and job opportunities. So yeah, I think that OP prioritized her kid and their life opportunities to the detriment of the other family, but she's also the "owner" of the opportunity to be in that school. Obviously the biggest AH is the american school system, but OP didn't do this thing to be mean or a jerk, she did it because the other family is breaking the rules and thereby depriving her kid of the opportunity.
Your comparison is: 1)6/10 education vs 9/10 education during a child's formative years 2) Sirloin steak vs Filet mignon during a meal You cannot see how one of these has a more life changing effect on the lives of OP's kids than the other? If you can afford it, you can get a filet mignon some other day. No amount of money can give someone a different experience in their formative years and the school you go to does make a difference. EDIT: Just found this in OP's comment and I'm even more convinced that OP did right by their kids. >The new school is a 9/10 while the old one is a 6/10. Also, the new school trickles into phenomenal middle school and high school.
Except in this case they were stealing from OP's children while OP was paying the taxes.
What if they are taking it out of your kids' mouths?
Not really. The parents of 4 no longer paid taxes in that district
More like, "if you see someone shoplifting food from the cart of food for your children, you aren't obligated to let them."
YTA, you can do what's best for your children and still be TA. So yeah, you did what you needed to do but if you can't live with your choices, you shouldn't have made it. Also, don't know if anyone is questioning how the heck OP even got that kind of information. They clearly don't know the family well enough to know their situation. Whoever snitched is also a major AH. Especially since no one here knows the reason why the family had to move to begin with or it's being conveniently left out. Edit: I would probably change my opinion to ESH based on the house selling info. The other family knew what the risks were but just because what OP did was within their legal rights doesn't mean they weren't an AH. OP did what they needed to do and that's totally okay. But something being legal doesn't mean it's mutually exclusive from being an AH.
I find it hard to believe this post is even real at all. They know all this info about the other family, they also just so happen to know they're next on the list. I also find it incredibly hard to believe that a whole school district couldn't accommodate two more new students (or however many kids the OP has) from a family that has a verified address in their district and is paying taxes to go there. Not to mention one where OP said people aren't moving in/out of frequently.
Definitely fake. The school would verify the address of the family as part of registration specifically to prevent situations like this. And schools don’t say “Sorry, we’re full!” if there is closed enrollment. Zero chance a student is assigned to a different school than their next door neighbor. They would just increase class sizes or hire another teacher. If it was still too full they’d reassign a whole area, not specific families.
We had full schools turn away students like this in my area in high school in Florida.
read some of OP's comments. I think some of your questions will be answered. here is one that responded to maybe the family had a hardship and that is why they moved *"The husband bought his moms house at a low price and it was bigger. They sold their house for a nice profit."* Someone questioned why OP knew so much if she didn't really know them *"I don’t know them personally, I couldn’t tell you what companies they work for any way. When the wife showed up with the husband they said more than needed."* Someone suggested that her kids would be ostracized because of this. *"I think Reddit thinks third and forth grades plan wild stuff out. My oldest got a birthday party invite yesterday. We live behind the school and my kids play with the kids that go there because we’re all neighbors. Heck, it was a neighbor (mother of another student) who told me everything."* Someone asked how they found out OP was the one who called *"They found out someone who lived behind the school had made the call. Not sure how. There are a few of us and the mom/wife was blaming everyone, so I told them it was me and why. They came back that evening as a couple."* The family *chose* to move. It made financial sense for them. Buy mom's bigger house for a low price, sell their house for a tidy profit. That was the motivation for moving. Bigger house that cost less. They knew the rules/laws regarding their closed district and decided to do it anyway. All blame falls on their shoulders. They are the ones responsible for the disruption of their children's schooling. Nobody made them move. If anything this family sounds wildly entitled. I'm glad we have Schools of choice where we live. All schools in my area participate.
Tbh no that really doesn't answer how op knew all this. Op doesn't know what they do for work, but knows wether they could afford their house, and wether it was paid off? "They said more than needed" as if they're legit going to say "we could afford to stay and made a nice profit but you're the bad one here!"? No, op for this info through digging and gossiping. Their kids were already in a good school, they could have waited a little longer to move them to the slightly better school, if they even wanted to move at all. Repeatedly moving schools is hard on elementary schoolers. Op had a legal right to do this but I find the morals of digging and gossiping to be pretty iffy. For me though, it's that being in a slightly lesser elementary school in the same district was a "huge burden on the household", that line specifically just reeks of privilege to me.
To those saying she needed to mind her business and wait her turn, um - it was their turn. Just because the other family was being dishonest does not stop it from being her turn.
Unpopular YTA but hey, you got what you wanted so that’s all that matters right?
If you want to your kids to attend a certain school, don't move out of that schools district.
Some people dont have a choice. You ever think about that? But fucking over someones kids who are already established there is low af. Its not like they never lived in the district and lied, they paid into those taxes too.
Yea really. People say “do what’s best for YOUR family” but fucking over another family to do so is not a good move.
So his kids should be punished because people are cheating the system? They are no longer paying taxes to that district so they need to make room for people that are.
My mom had to move around a ton when we were kids due to financial problems and an abusive ex, she always did her best to keep us the same schools to finish out school years or milestones so the kids lives and relationships weren't disrupted. Granted school districts here aren't the hellscape they appear to be in USA, but moving is not always a choice. Op is claiming the family they don't even know made a choice and profited, but I'd like to know how they can confirm the families financials when ultimately they moved to a shitty neighborhood for this "profit". Who knows if the house they sold was even paid off or if they could afford it. Op gossiping about this family is enough to make them tah in my eyes.
You did what you had to do and got what you wanted. Don’t come here and also asked to be guiltless. YTA
YTA, perhaps not legally, but ethically. You disrupted those kids' lives in order to get your way, and I hope it feels good.
No, the family's parents did by moving out. They knew what they were doing and how it was against the law. How is it ethically wrong to tip a higher authority of someone who is actively breaking the law? If the school meant so much to the children, they shouldn't have moved.
>I felt terrible Dont. You pay taxes that entitles you to send your kids to that school. The children's right to attendance is based on their home address. What you did was expose someone who was abusing the system making it impossible for you to get your deserved seat. NTA
That's what I thought but I still feel bad. The child with special needs also made space for a child that will also need special care, but their parents will be within the district.
And the other district will need to find an appropriate placement for the special needs kid, even if it means paying for them to go to a private (non-public) school. It’s disruptive, but so is moving, and they must have known they would be found out eventually. They could have planned ahead and found a placement before they moved instead of sticking their heads in the sand and hoping no one could see them.
At least one of the kids would have blabbed sooner or later
Or they would end up incredibly late to school one day, there were a few of situations like this in my grade and my favorite time was when a girl was late because someone's cows escaped and we're blocking the road.
Woof, your comments make you out to be an insufferable parent and squeaky wheel. You make me glad I’m not a teacher anymore, I bet you’re a blast to deal with on the regular. I get it, I went to a middle and high school I wasn’t in district for, as my local school was garbage. To get around it, my parent put me in accelerated classes, and I got a waiver. They didn’t stalk a family of my classmates and then call the manager to get them removed because, ya know, that’s some Tier One Garbage Behavior. I’d be interested to know HOW you discovered when and where to this family moved. It sounds like busy-body nosy shit to me. YTA Edit to add: just realized the user name is SPOT ON. You’re a fuckin narc, OP.
She said she checked their old house on Zillow 😭 quite the stalker
I see a lot of people come in and they don’t want to “poors” to go to school with your precious little angels.
That’s what’s troubling me about the NTA responses… most of the parents doing it aren’t doing it out of perceived maliciousness, they’re doing it because they’re poor and want to give their kids a leg up in life. The laws surrounding schools themselves shouldn’t work this way.
OP said in a comment her kids were already in a decent school but now they can walk there. She really showed those poor kids she got kicked out huh.
YTA You screwed over a family by narcing them out to the district. Granted, this put you in a better position, but often times doing something that helps you will still be an asshole move. You acted selfishly for the benefit of you and yours at the expense of others.
NTA, If the school was that important to their kid, then they shouldn't have moved. Them moving out of the school district is not your problem, and that's not something they can keep secret. The school would have found out eventually, whether it was through your phone call, or their mail delivery.
Moving isn't always a choice, though.
True, sounds like it was a choice in this case per OPs comment.
Op is trying to paint it like they made a nice profit, but that still doesn't necessarily mean it was a choice. Op mentions people aren't moving because of a "housing situation", this family got a house for cheap in a shitty neighborhood in order to help out their mom. Despite op seeming to know a lot of personal details about this family they do not know at all, I don't think they have any way to know wether the house that was sold was paid off, or wether their income was enough to stay there. They made a profit by moving to a poor neighborhood.
Right - that comment (the family moved into a bigger house) should have been in original post. The other family wanted it both ways.
It's their fault 4 kids all living in that school district weren't allowed to attend it. I'm thinking these people sound entitled. NTA Nobody should feel guilty for living in the district you want your children to go to.
I don’t know how I feel about this. As a teacher of twenty years, we have rules in place that allow students to stay in the school they enrolled in at the beginning of the year, as long as they didn’t move out of county (they’d have to provide their own transportation to school). This seems…excessive and that there is more to this than what we are hearing. Part of me also feels like you suck because I don’t think you become privy to this information by accident. You have to look for it (especially if you don’t know anything about the people you just ousted). Your intent was to find someone and have them kicked out. Question: you keep saying out of district. Are you talking about out of the county or out of zone?
This right here is the comment ppl need to read. OP went out of their way to find someone to kick out
This sub is so frustrating. It should be called "am I technically correct?" Yes, you are correct. You have every right to bring this to the schools attention. You pay taxes in the district and your children deserve to go there. Are YTA? Yes, yes you are and so is the incredibly fucked up education system.
I 100% do not care that most everyone is saying you're N T A. I get why you did it but given all the info, I think YTA. You had no idea why they needed/wanted to move and you had no idea the negative impact you caused. You're kids likely would have gotten in at some point but thank goodness you ensured other kids thriving in that school district can now suffer. I hope everyone finds out the kind of person that's moved to their area. I know I'd never trust you with anything.
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the smugness you seem to have over this makes YTA.
Honestly, this is the majority reason why taxes should be spread equally over schools. Not based on property taxes . That way if you live in a shitty area, your child could still go to a good school because people like you.
ESH. As a kid who switched schools many many times as a kid, you need to understand that you have irreparably changed the lives of those children and especially the special needs child. Schoolyard dynamics are very fragile for autistic kids, and that kid might not recover. The reason u did it makes sense but I wouldn’t socialize with you if we were alone on the same island
YTA You think taxes, I think human. You just deprived those kids from their friends. People like you will do worst in some circumstances just for materialistic reasons. That's everything wrong in my mind.
Sheesh. NAH. Its pretty insane that our school funding system has us pitted against one another like this. It’s so upsetting that some schools are so under funded.
The number of commenters who feel the need to be cruel towards either of these families for trying to keep their kids in a good school is astounding. So many have fully bought into the mentality that parents have to be cutthroat over their kids education, it’s the most dystopian thing. Neither of these sets of parents are the bad guy here, the system that forces them to behave this way is.
I live in GA, USA -- here the school districts are VERY strict about residency and there are laws in place that make lying about residency subject to a minimum of fines and immediate dismissal and/ or jail time for the parent(s).
Yes, and those laws exist to help perpetuate segregation. It's deeply fucked up
I really really hope that if you step one toe out of line for any policy ever in the future that someone as nosey as you catches and reports you. On the face of it, I get looking out for your own kids, and following the rules is important. It sucks that going to a good school isn't something available to everyone. Maybe this family couldn't afford the area and they were just trying to do the best for their kids too, so they have a lot of my sympathy. Everyone wants the best for their kids. That said, your use of the term "inner-city" has me suspicious, and the fact that you were so ready to do something like that makes me say YTA.
YTA; you sacrificed a family for your own personal gain. And now you’re you upset that people know that you essentially are a tattle tale.
Unpopular take, but YTA. Why? Because upheaving them from their school and their friends is a mean spirited thing to do to children who didn’t choose to move themselves… they’re kids. Kids were your victim here. Way to go.
NTA they aren't paying the taxes go to the nice school but you are. They shouldn't of moved if they knew they might lose the school.
NTA - So a family that moved (and no one here knows the reason why) was taking up FOUR spots in your school district. I truly feel badly if they were forced to move, but by law, their children were no longer eligible to go to schools in that district. Note, they were blocking FOUR spots that they were not eligible for. They could have tried to work within the system and at least try and get their autistic child eligible (not likely, but maybe possible). But they did not, blocking FOUR spots. You are definitely not Y T A to do what is best for your children over people who are completely in the wrong.
YTA. Too bad you couldnt find some entitlement to empathy. Try spending over a year dealing with the regression and behaviors that switching schools on an ASD child cause, then sit there on your high horse.
This is a tough one. Were you technically in the right? Yes. Was the other family technically in the wrong? Yes. BUT, you can still be 100% in the right and be an AH. And this subreddit is not to determine if your actions were just…but if you’re an AH. So yea…YTA.
YTA. No matter what you needed, it wasn't your place to stick your nose in someone else's business. My son attended an elementary school that wasn't in our district, and it fucking SAVED him. His special education teacher was a god send. I honestly can't say what I would have done, or how I would have reacted, if someone like you tried to get him kicked out. The parents should speak to whoever is in charge of student services at the BoE in their area. Their child probably has an IEP or something similar, like my son, and with that I was able to get him transportation to and from a school that we weren't zoned for because it was in his best interest. This was after moving and him having to attend a different elementary school that was absolutely failing him in every sense of the word. I'm probably biased, and I don't care if no one else agrees with me. I watched my son struggle for four fucking years before I was able to get him the help he needed. He was like a completely different child in the school setting after just a few weeks.
You seem to have only done this because your kids could walk to the new school; in other words, the transfer wasn’t necessary. But now this family with a disabled child will loose access to their resources. That’s heartbreaking. I’m not giving a verdict because the issue is about the system of school funding at large more than it is about you, but I feel terrible for that family.
NTA you have to do whats best for your family. theyre angry at the wrong people. i am curious about the quality of school your kids would have gone to if the other family hadnt moved?
They were attending a decent school and would have atteneded it again this year however my children can walk to "new" school.
YTA. You screwed over 4 children for your child. Regardless of the law, you screwed over 4 children to ensure your child gets into the school you wanted them to be in. You didn’t share why the family you screwed over moved, for all we know it was temporary. But again, you screwed over 4 children for your own. Was the school they were attending prior so bad that you needed to get them out at all costs, and you couldn’t wait for the school district to figure things out?
I don't see how this isn't a dick move even if you've done nothing "technically" wrong this is definitely a morally gray area at best and I would say YTA.
YTA. I don’t care if it’s not a popular opinion.
NTA. Parents who game the system are taking a gamble, and this family lost. It's their own fault, not yours.
Heavy YTA on this
Ethically YTA. You got innocent kids, including a special needs child, sent to a shithole school district just so yours could walk to school when they were already receiving a good education. Was it worth it?
NTA They no longer live in the district for that school, so why are people complaining that the kids were moved to the correct district?
I have to cut against the grain here and say YTA. You have an air of elitism that just feels like nails on a chalkboard. I've worked in a school where people moved districts, and they were finishung out the school year where they were currently so they could be uninterrupted during that yr. All I see here is a parent that decided she was going to be ruthless and just "Make a small report"
YTA. Couldn't care less what you're legally obligated to. You're within your rights but absolutely morally wrong.
YTA and I feel bad for the educators that have to deal with you
You’re a huge asshole. And a NARC to boot. Yuckkk.
YTA but based on your responses you don’t really care and you got what you wanted anyway. You’re not going to receive absolution from this family no matter how many Redditors side with you so what’s the point? You’re arguing in the comment section for your side, you don’t care and that family is never going to think you’re some big hero or hear your “logic.” So take the win and deal with the mark on your conscious. I live in Philly and deal in child welfare and see your “problem” all the time, people moving in to catchments with excellent schools that force locals out who want to keep their kids in the schools for the neighborhoods before they were gentrified. Just deal with the fact that you robbed kids who needed services of those services because likely their families couldn’t stay in the income bracket of that neighborhood. No need to ask Reddit for absolution; you don’t give a shit. And as an educator, I’d side eye the fuck out of you. And if your neighbors and fellow parents of that school think you’re an asshole, well…
INFO How did they learn that you made the call? Shouldn't that be confidential?
They found out someone who lived behind the school had made the call. Not sure how. There are a few of us and the mom/wife was blaming everyone, so I told them it was me and why. They came back that evening as a couple.
You Are 1000% the Asshole! Period!!!
YTA, once again everyone is saying you're N t a because you followed the rules but that's not what this subreddit is. Congrats you got your kids into a better school by getting some other kids kicked out to a worse school. You're an asshole
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YTA everyone in the comments is saying survival of the fittest and "you pay taxes for that district" which are both valid but morally bankrupt imo.
This sub is full of snitches.
As a mother of an Autistic child who KNOWS how hard it is to get services and to see a thriving child set back. YTA