Following years of concerns over students lying about where they live to gain admission to Dallas ISD's most prestigious magnets, the district is announcing a plan to put a stop to it.
DISD says it will now maintain a database that will flag students entering a magnet program for the first year regardless of grade level. Flagged students may include those who attended a school outside of the district the previous year.
Flagged students, along with others who are randomly selected, could be asked to provide documents that prove they live within the district. They may also be subject to home visits.
DISD parent Lysandra Dial calls it a good first step.
Her daughter Roman's been in the district since she was in kindergarten. Some of those years included magnet programs, which they'd hoped she'd be able to continue through Booker T. Washington School for the Performing and Visual Arts.
"We started probably half a year in advance, and she picked her material that she was going to solo and then started going twice a week to private lessons," said Lysandra Dial.
But despite preparation, Roman was wait-listed.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
"Just the amount of time she put into it and the amount of dedication. It was very sad. It was very hard," said Dial.
Especially after hearing stories about students who lie about residency to get into the highly competitive school.
"I can't guarantee my daughter didn't make it to Booker T. because of someone from out of district taking her place or someone cheating their way in one way or another. But when you know this is happening on a pretty big level, and you know administration knows about it and doesn't do anything about it and they support it some extent, how do you tell your kid everything they did was the right thing to do?" said Dial.
The district says any student found lying about their address could be dismissed from the program by the end of the semester and would be ineligible to enroll again.
DISD believes the highest number of inconsistencies are at Booker T. Washington with as many as 20% of the entering class falsifying records.
"That's what's really hard when you as a parent are teaching them to do the right thing and to honor your commitments and honor the rules, and then the school you want to go to doesn't honor those same rules, it makes it doubly hard," said Dial.
As she prepares to start her sophomore year at another district high school, Roman says she's happy where she is and has no plans to audition again at Booker T. Still, Dial believes the district's plan could help other families in the future.
"If they actually put it into action, then maybe you will see some of these students who get waitlisted or rejected all together that actually have the qualifications getting to go who are from our district," said Dial.
The district does have a plan in place to admit out of district students only once all qualified in district students have been admitted.
