Districts urged to review registration and enrollment forms and practices to ensure compliance with laws regarding undocumented students
Published: March 29, 2017
On Monday, California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area
asked California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to “take pro-active steps with respect to enrollment practices imposed by certain California school districts that unlawfully discourage and bar students from enrolling in school.”
As reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, the legal advocacy groups found 75 school districts using enrollment forms that require parents to provide information that directly or indirectly involves their child’s immigration status, such as Social Security numbers or when a student entered the county.
CSBA encourages all districts to review the information they are collecting from students during registration to ensure they are not directly or indirectly requiring unnecessary information during the enrollment process that may unlawfully discourage undocumented parents from enrolling their children in public schools or undocumented students from enrolling. California school districts are required to verify that students meet the residency and age requirements for school attendance, but they may not do so in a way that would discourage undocumented families from enrolling in and attending public schools. School districts may not require information about citizenship status, information about entry date into the U.S., Social Security numbers, or a birth certificate for registration. These documents and information are unnecessary to establish residency and may discourage undocumented students from enrolling. Additionally, although districts may request parents to provide Social Security numbers on a voluntary basis, CSBA encourages districts to develop other student identification systems that will not distinguish undocumented students. Similarly, although districts may require proof of age to verify that a student meets the minimum age requirement to enroll in school and may request a birth certificate, districts may not require a birth certificate, which undocumented students may lack or which indicate a foreign place of birth. Districts must allow methods of proving residency and age-eligibility that do not directly or indirectly require families to share their immigration status to enroll students in the district, such as a baptismal certificate or parent affidavit.
For more detailed information about governing boards’ responsibilities with respect to educating undocumented students, please consult CSBA’s Legal Guidance on Providing All Children Equal Access to Education, Regardless of Immigration Status.