The Oglethorpe County School System has begun its second year collecting residency audits for students in the third, sixth and ninth grades.
The residency audit requires parents to submit proof of residency in Oglethorpe County, which may include a mortgage statement, current utility bill or current lease or rental agreement. The documentation must reflect where the student will be “laying down their head to rest,” meaning that if residents own property in Oglethorpe County but live outside the county, the other county is their point of residence.
“It shouldn’t be the burden of our taxpayers to educate folks living in other counties,” Superintendent Beverley Levine said. “If you feel like our school systems are good enough to come here, then you need to be a property owner and invest in this community.”
Students who live outside the county will pay $3,321 to attend Oglethorpe County schools in 2025-26, a decrease from the $3,374 tuition in 2024-25. Levine said between 15 and 18 out-of-county students paid tuition last year.
As of June 24, 30% of third graders, 29% of sixth graders and 23% of ninth graders had completed the requirements. Some parents have submitted the audit directly to the schools.
“People have forgotten,” Levine said. “They just have to go ahead and send it in.”
The audit must be completed prior to each school’s Open House in order for students to be assigned a home room and scheduled for classes.
“The earlier somebody can complete it, the better,” Levine said. “If they wait (until) the last minute, and they need to schedule a meeting if they don’t have the correct documentation, then they’re going to run into difficulty.”
Levine said she does not expect the number of out-of-county students to decrease for the 2025-26 school year, with several students having graduated high school and out-of-county parents having inquired and submitted paperwork.
“If somebody lives in Washington-Wilkes or Clarke County and they’re coming to our school system, their school system is getting their property tax that’s paying for them,” she said. “So (the county) is getting the property tax, but we’re educating (the student) (and) losing that money per student.”
She said it became necessary to monitor residents who had moved to outside counties because they were previously “grandfathered in” to the school system when starting kindergarten and continued coming to in-county schools.
“When students come to our schools from out of district, they are using resources that they haven’t contributed to,” BOE chair Becky Soto said. “Not all schools accept out-of-district students, and we do, but we do require them to pay (tuition). The more students we have, the more money we need.”
Levine said the board recognizes the “bulk” of the money to fund education comes from local property owners and businesses. She said the school system also does not advertise toward out-of-county students but will accept them if the school has the space.
“We do not have the ability to generate the tax dollars that others do through the SPLOST, and so it’s important that we maximize every tax dollar that we have,” Levine said.
Residency audit
Go to oglethorpe.k12.ga.us/forms to fill out the correct form for students going into the third, sixth and ninth grades.