"Follow that kid's parents!" School enrollment rivalry takes sneaky turn

It all began with a simple conversation in a park about a year ago. "My son has enrolled at La Paloma High School because I have put him down as resident in the house of some friends who live round here," admitted one indiscreet parent to another while waiting for her children to come out of school. But the comment was overheard by others, and a few months later, private detective José Antonio Marín was on the case.

The woman who had overheard the comment, and hired the private detective, lives a few blocks from the high school in question, but her daughter was turned down, along with dozens of others.

Last week, registration opened for Madrid's state-funded schools and colleges. Parents have 21 days to present their application at the school of their choice. Each school's board then assesses applications based on how close the child lives to the school, whether they have siblings attending, income and health, with points awarded accordingly. Inevitably, some schools, like La Paloma, which is run by the Catholic Church with state funding (a model known as concertado), are considered better than others, and end up turning some families down.

The mother who hired the detective says that she lives within a stone's throw of La Paloma, and that her children met all criteria, but were still rejected. She discovered an internet chat room about education in Madrid, and eventually began talking to another woman whose child's application had also been turned down for La Paloma. They decided to hire a detective to see if other parents had falsely enrolled themselves as living nearby.

Marín says that he is hired to investigate around two or three such cases each year. The two women gave him information about the woman who had unwisely bragged, along with another who they suspected. In just three days, and at a cost of 440 euros, they had the information they needed to go to the authorities.

But circumstances changed, and the two women's daughters were able to attend the school, and they decided not to pursue the matter. They now find themselves at parents' evenings with the women they had investigated, who knows nothing about the affair. "If we had pursued this further, I could have had her children removed from the school," she says, pointing out that the authorities know that many parents break the law to get their children into school but refuse to act even when presented with proof.

Madrid's college and school boards say that there is very little they can do to uncover deception if parents decide to submit fraudulent documentation. The head of one state school, who also prefers to remain anonymous, admits that she does not check electoral registers, even when she suspects that parents have provided false information about where they live. The Madrid Education Board also says that it is "unable" to investigate suspicion of fraud. It says the responsibility lies with Madrid's town halls to make sure that people do not falsely register themselves.

Parents have also resorted to registering themselves as living at different addresses with the tax authorities, equally illegal, although this is now more difficult due to improved data checking. But some parents are still prepared to take the risk.

"It is the best thing that I have ever done, and I would do it again," says one anonymous parent. He says that his son has a series of food allergies, and that the nearest school to him had no medical facilities: "They wouldn't take responsibility for the boy," he says. So he found a school with medical facilities in another neighborhood. He says that the school head advised him to register with the tax authorities under an address nearby.

The tax authorities soon discovered the ruse, but the parent managed to delay matters until his son was admitted to the school. The case went to court, but was then resolved with an 80-euro fine.

With the school registration season ahead, internet forums are buzzing with ideas about how to circumvent the rules. "I am thinking of renting an apartment close to the school for a few months so that I can enroll on the electoral register there. Do you think that I'll get caught out?" "I have told my doctor that my kid has a rash, but he won't give me a certificate saying he's allergic. I need one for the school; does anybody know how I can get one?"

Given the scant possibilities of discovery, and the derisory punishments involved if they are caught, growing numbers of desperate parents are resorting to increasingly desperate measures. A residents' association in Madrid's stately Austrias neighborhood says that local children are being denied places at schools in the area because of outsiders who falsely register on the electoral roll there. It is calling on the Education Board to investigate allegations of irregularities, and to allow all parents to see paperwork presented by applicants, as well as requiring the local police to check that people have not enrolled falsely.

Emilio Díaz, the secretary of the Madrid division of FERE, the Spanish Federation of Religious-run Schools, and which represents around 70 of concertado schools in the region, says he understands parents' concerns. "Selecting a school is a very sensitive subject that generates a lot of concern among families." He says that the majority of parents prefer concertados, "which creates a lot of demand."

There are 1,616 state-funded schools in the Madrid region, with a further 580 concertados, and 1,113 private institutions. The Popular Party-run regional government boasts that 87 percent of the 70,000 children attending infant school over this academic year are at the school of their parents' choice. But among this figure is the mother who falsely registered her child on the electoral register.