(SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS) — School districts around the Bay Area are spying on their own students — often with private investigators — just to make sure the kids really live where they say they do.
Sometimes, private eyes surreptitiously photograph the youngsters as they come and go from homes suspected of being fronts. Sometimes, they lie about who and what they’re doing in hopes people unwittingly will rat the kids out.
This schoolhouse subterfuge tumbled into the open last month when the Orinda Union School District kicked out a 7-year-old Latina it erroneously believed did not reside in the tony, mostly white suburb. But in mostly affluent districts from Los Gatos to Palo Alto to Mill Valley, residency checks have been standard operating procedure for years.
