The school district may consider better ways to help identify those officially calling Londonderry home who send their children to school, while tracking down others who may not be following the rules.
At a meeting last week, school board members heard details about a potential program through the company Thomson Reuters that the district could sign on to, one that could offer support and help when it comes to identifying any district residency issues with families who send their students to school in Londonderry.
Thomson Reuters is a technology company offering products and solutions to aid in several areas, including risk fraud, investigations and other services.
In a remote presentation to the board, Thomson Reuters account executive Jacob Reiben gave insight on what his company could do for the Londonderry district by way of offering tools to aid in investigating and helping clarify any issues with residency of students and their families, mostly by helping verify the information the district has on file and flagging any discrepancies.
Superintendent Dan Black said the district often has issues when it comes to making sure all residency rules are being followed.
Having a tool to access public records could help with complicated residency cases that come to the district.
Being able to verify the information can also help Londonderry make sure its students are living where the information on file says they are, Reiben said.
The program could verify and match information already on file such as names and addresses, while also identifying anything that might be an issue.
“It’s available to verify information that has been submitted to you by families,” Reiben told the board. “And to prevent fraud. This can do that on a larger scale.”
Finding anything that might be out of order then gives the school district the opportunity to move forward with family contacts and conversations.
“We have residency issues all the time,” Black said, adding this type of support could help with the process of going through public records to verify information.
“To sort through some of these issues, that’s what we are looking for,” Black said.
Black said this presentation was only an early look at what this program might do for the school district as budget season gets underway.
And if put in place, the school district would fully own the program.
But the superintendent stressed that the board would have to be comfortable with using it, along with the public.
Black said he reached out to other school districts, saying using this program could cut down on time.
Black said the school district may see about 10-15 residency issues per year.
“And another 20-30 that don’t make it to me,” he said. “It’s a lot.”
Board Chairman Bob Slater said it’s a program that’s worth looking into as the budget season moves forward.
He added it’s important to also bring the information to the public to consider.
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