District looks at over-age safeguards

Their records at Immokalee High School said they were young enough to attend high school.

The documents they carried on themselves proved otherwise.

Although Blandel Jean, 30, and Josh Jean-Mary, 23, were removed from school, their time as students has shown Collier County School District officials that there are serious holes in the district’s registration policy.

Now, Superintendent Ray Baker wants a committee to discuss and offer suggestions to ensure this never happens again in the Collier County School District.

It is a third-degree felony to provide a false birth certificate, according to Florida law, and is punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Lying to get into school also costs the district, and the taxpayers, money. In addition to adding to the shortage of classrooms already diminished by the Class Size Amendment, it will cost the district more than $7,200 to educate a student who is not supposed to be in school in the first place.

For a school to enroll a student in Collier County, the student’s parent or guardian must provide one of the following: a birth certificate; a certificate of baptism showing the date of birth and place of baptism, accompanied by an affidavit sworn to by the parents; an insurance policy on the child’s life that has been in force for at least two years; a bona fide contemporary Bible record of the child’s birth, accompanied by an affidavit sworn to by the parents; a passport or certificate of arrival in the U.S. that includes the age of the child; a transcript or record of age shown in the child’s school record of at least four years prior to application, stating date of birth; an affidavit of age sworn to by the parent accompanied by a certificate of age signed by a public health officer or private physician indicating the physician has examined the child and believes the age stated in the affidavit is substantially correct.

The School Board policy is the same as Florida Statute 1003.21 (4).

Dee Whinnery, executive director of student services, said individual schools request an original birth certificate as proof of age. She said schools don’t keep data as to the form of documentation provided by parents.

Baker said the problem usually arises with students who have documents that are difficult to track.

“Ninety-nine percent of the time, we have independent verification through school records,” he said. “The task force (that will look at district registration policies) will scope the whole thing out.”

In an e-mail to Assistant Superintendent Eric Williams dated May 8, Whinnery wrote that if a school questioned the birth certificate of a Haitian student, the student would be asked to have the Nation Archives of Haiti verify the birth certificate. Both Jean and Jean-Mary are Haitian.

“They indicated this would be a one- to three-month process and have a $20 to $50 cost involved,” she said.

The student would be admitted to the school in the interim, and would be removed if independent verification proved the student was over-age.

But, without more help, the district’s hands could be tied.

Department of Education officials said federal law requires that schools not ask for documentation of citizenship and require only proof of residence, like an electric bill, to enroll a student. Students don’t even have to have a Social Security number or birth certificate to enroll in school.

The provision was enacted after Plyler v. Doe, a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court case in which the court struck down a state statute denying funding for education of undocumented immigrants.

“Many times, students from foreign countries do not have school records and in some cases may not have attended school on a consistent basis for years. The district needs to have a process of determining the best initial placement of the students which can be verified by transfer of records by the end of the year or by established assessment procedures,” according to state law.

At the time Jean and Jean-Mary were removed from school, Williams said district personnel would receive additional training to help them detect when a birth certificate or other forms of identification is not legitimate.

Members of the Collier County School Board have their own ideas on what should be done, but they all said something has to change.

“If our policies and procedures were effective enough, sports would not be the issue. The sports have overshadowed the real problem of having accountability over this situation,” School Board member Linda Abbott said.

Abbott said the district needed to have procedures in place that would hold the staff accountable, and said the school district needed to make sure it had procedures to ensure students and parents were providing the correct, and accurate, information to schools.

Board member Dick Bruce said that should extend to all parents and students, not just those from foreign countries.

“We need to ask every question allowed by law,” he said. “There might be students from out of zone falsifying their addresses. Is that right? We need to tighten up our policies and make sure that we do our due diligence, especially in our high schools. Safety is paramount.”

Board member Pat Carroll said she has been an advocate for centralized registration for the entire district rather than leaving it to individual schools. The Lee County School District has centralized registration for the district.

Lee County school officials couldn’t be reached for comment despite repeated attempts.

Carroll said that, although she is not sure it is practical for the district because of the expense, she would like the registration committee to consider it.

Board Chairwoman Kathleen Curatolo said school officials should discuss with legislative representatives what the state and federal requirements are, and to either tighten or change some of the rules.

“We need to do what’s best and most appropriate for the students,” she said.

Board Vice Chairman Steven Donovan suggested that to tighten up registration practices with students, schools require students to show proof of a Florida driver license before they would be allowed to drive their car to school.

“It might be a way to find over-age students. Whatever happens, we need to get our policies tightened-up. We need a procedure in place to make sure this does not happen again,” he said.