400 Falsify Adresses to Enroll in Torrance : Education: Officials ask students using phony data to obtain special permits from their home districts so they can stay in current schools.

Torrance Unified School District investigators have discovered that the district has as many as 400 students who falsified address data so they could attend Torrance schools.

District officials are asking these students to contact their home districts and obtain special permits so they can finish the school year in Torrance, according to Supt. Edward Richardson. The students will not be punished for using a false address, officials said.

“Our feeling is that if they can go back and get a permit, we’ll allow them to stay,” Richardson said.

The students will be considered for enrollment next year if they obtain permits and if space can be found for them, Torrance officials said.

Such special permits are granted in a variety of circumstances, including health and safety reasons or when parents’ after-school child care is in Torrance. School officials said they expect many of the students with falsified addresses to apply and receive the permits.

School board President Ann Gallagher said she supports this approach.

“I feel it’s very unfortunate that students are forced to lie about their addresses to get a good education, so I think it’s better that they go through the permit process--I’m not (averse) to that,” she said.

Many of the students live in areas served by the Los Angeles Unified School District and Centinela Valley Union High School District to the east and north of Torrance, school officials said. The Los Angeles district was the single largest source of the “line-jumping” students, they said.

Some out-of-district students and parents told The Times last fall that they faked residency information because they thought that Torrance schools are superior but they could not afford to move to the largely middle-class city. Parents also said they worried that gang problems were worsening at their neighborhood schools.

Richardson, asked whether he is flattered by the apparent popularity of Torrance schools, described the phenomenon as “maybe a backhanded compliment.”

The district launched a three-month investigation of non-resident students last fall after a spirited debate over how many of them had falsified addresses to attend city schools. Some teachers blamed out-of-district students for what they described as an increase in discipline problems, a claim district administrators adamantly denied.

In January, two part-time investigators were hired for $6,000 to assist a third official in locating students who live outside the district.

The three men pored over enrollment records, using a computerized list to pinpoint students from different families who gave the same address. They then visited homes and apartments to verify whether students lived there.

The investigators’ efforts turned up 300 to 400 out-of-district students, school officials said. The tally included about 40 at West High School, about 50 at Torrance High School, about 40 at Hull Middle School and 29 at Calle Mayor Middle School, Richardson said.