At some point this school year, your child might have been sitting next to a student who didn't belong there.
Every child has the right in Arizona — and is required by law — to go to school through age 16. But some parents are turning to enrollment fraud to put their kids in districts where they don't live, and, in some cases have never lived, when the normal channels don't work.
It's hard for districts to give the exact number of fraudulent applications they receive each year. Some see only a handful of cases because many of their schools have room for out-of-district students. Others say their fraudulent enrollments can reach into the dozens.
But they say even one wrong student in a class could mess up a district's enrollment planning and cause some classrooms to be stretched beyond capacity.
Here's how it usually works: A family applies to go to a school in another district through Arizona's open enrollment law. But the school is at capacity, and all interested parties outside the district are put on a waiting list. To sidestep that problem, parents design a scheme to show that they live in the district and therefore get instant admission.
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Some create phony utility bills. Some say they actually live on a plot of land in the middle of nowhere. Others send the child to live with a family friend. Or, they'll claim that they work in the district, so they must be able to put their child in a nearby school.
"People are dishonest in so many avenues of their lives that I guess they'll do what's best for their kids at whatever expense," said Nanci Freedberg, whose two children are on waiting lists to attend Manzanita Elementary in the Catalina Foothills School District.
Published reports of such happenings across the United States are few, but one case has generated national attention.
Last year, officials in Cran-ston, R.I., a suburb of Providence, found about 200 students from an urban high school trying to sneak into their district, according to the Providence Journal. Since then, about 150 have returned to their original school, one mother faced felony charges for fraud, and truancy officers in the area started tracking down parents and demanding financial restitution for wrongfully using the district's resources.
Submitting false information to a government official is a Class 2 misdemeanor in Arizona, although no district has sought to prosecute a parent.
Those who deal with the lying parents snicker at the thought that after all this time, adults are still finding new ways to cheat the system.
"They treat it like a game mostly," said Catalina Foothills Assistant Superintendent Terry Downey.
Still, administrators say it's a serious problem. If a class gets a high number of kids who aren't supposed to be there, it drives up the district enrollment numbers, which means administrators may have to hire teachers, build schools, bring in portable classrooms or try to make room at an existing school.
Luckily, they find the bulk of the cheaters before it gets that far, usually because they check addresses on open enrollment applications before approval. It doesn't require a special team to complete this. School registrars and district administrators who work with enrollment take on the added responsibility.
The trouble outweighs the one positive aspect of extra students — more money from the state, which can give districts thousands of dollars per pupil.
"If we have people who don't reside here and sidestep our (enrollment) projections, it can create a lot of issues for us," Downey said.
So why do parents feel the need to fudge applications? The answer puzzles officials.
For some, it might make commuting easier if a child went to school in a neighboring district. For others, it could be a chance to get their kids into a school that does better on tests, has more qualified teachers or is in a better neighborhood.
Freedberg, who wants to put her kids in Manzanita now to prepare them for the eventual move there from Tanque Verde Elementary School in 2007, said she sort of understands the lengths people go to in Catalina Foothills because "it's regarded so highly. It's a great position for the district to be in."
But the flattery is lost on administrators, who have few qualms about turning away families who try to fool them.
"Part of the reason people come here is they believe we make good decisions with money," Downey said. "Having a program that is desirable takes planning, (and) we have to protect that."
It is tempting to want to submit a false address or tampered house deed to get your kid out of an undesired school and into a better one in another area, said Tucson Unified School District parent Sarah Meyers.
"I could have been on my in-laws' deed (in Flowing Wells)," said Meyers, who moved her son from TUSD to Sonoran Science Academy, a K-12 charter school on the Northwest Side. "I have relatives that might have let me use their address, but I didn't do it. I'm one of the types that would have been caught."
Still, as much as district officials bemoan having to confront parents over lying, they say the worst thing they have to do is pull the affected student out of a classroom.
"We try to ensure that we don't have those kids actually in our school and then have to take them out," Downey said. "It's a hard thing to do."
Each district admits that some kids slip through the system. To stem the problem, some districts have set up stricter enrollment policies. Vail requires open enrollment applicants and district residents to provide two proofs of residency before registering at a school.
"Some of our longtime residents are offended that they have to show us two forms," said Lorrie Miller, registrar for Vail's Empire High School. "But because of (the policy), we've pretty much gotten to the point that it's an impossibility to do any more."
Sunnyside goes one step further, asking families to submit three documents.
"That's helped us because we only get a handful each year," district spokeswoman Monique Soria said.
Still, the problem isn't going to stop, officials say, because someone always finds a new way to skirt the system.
"We have some years where we think it's gotten worse," Downey said, "but on the whole we're thinking it's pretty steady."
On Starnet: Compare schools' test scores on the StarNet School Scorecard at www.azstarnet.com/education
● Methods some parents have used to try to prove their child lives within the boundaries of a different school district:
l Buying a rental house and claiming that as their main residence.
l Buying a plot of land, signing up for utility hookups and submitting an empty bill.
l Signing over guardianship of a child to a relative or a friend who lives in the district.
l Getting a new driver's license with a wrong address.
l Arizona law says that providing false information to a government official is a Class 2 misdemeanor, meaning a possible fine of up to $750. If the document was approved by a notary public, it could be classed as a Class 4 felony, meaning a possible 30-month prison sentence.
l To date, no Pima County district has filed charges against a parent for submitting false residency information.
