Four students left Riverside-Brookfield High School at the end of the first semester after RB investigators discovered that they were living out of district.
One case involving two siblings, one a junior and the other a freshman, went to a formal residency hearing on Dec. 21. The hearing officer heard evidence and concluded that the two siblings resided in Forest Park. On Jan. 11 the school board voted to accept the hearing officer’s recommendation to disenroll the two students.
District 208 will attempt to recover $15,123 in tuition for the first semester from the family of the two students who had attended RB for the entire first semester.
Two other students voluntarily withdrew from RB at the end of the semester after the school notified their families that investigation had determined that the students did not live within the boundaries of District 208. One student lived in Lyons and the other student lived in Chicago, said District 208 Interim Superintendent David Bonnette.
Bonnette said that the district has informed the families of those two students that they, too, could be billed for tuition for the first semester.
“We indicated that in the letter, and that’s something we’ll follow up on as advised by our counsel,” Bonnette said.
Last fall a couple of other students also voluntarily left RB after officials confronted their families with evidence that indicated the students lived outside of RB’s attendance boundaries, Bonnette said.
Other residency investigations at RB are ongoing.
“We have other instances that we are continuing to pursue,” Bonnette said.
– Bob Skolnik
