The student attended Northside College Prep, a selective enrollment school on Chicago’s Northwest Side, from 2019 until this past December, according to a report released Thursday by the CPS inspector general’s office.
Investigators found the student and her father violated the district’s residency rules by reporting that they lived in the basement of his cousin’s home in Chicago when the girl actually lived with her mother in suburban Lincolnwood, the report said.
Children who live outside Chicago are required to pay tens of thousands of dollars per year in non-resident tuition to attend the city’s taxpayer-funded schools. In this case, that added up to $56,337.13 for three school years and one semester.
“We have to look at these cases because every seat that is taken by a student who doesn’t reside in the district means that a student who does reside in the city of Chicago is deprived of the opportunity to go to one of these schools,” Inspector General Will Fletcher said in an interview.
“They’re highly competitive. And parents and families fight like hell to get their kids into some of these schools.”