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Salisbury Township committee to bring CLEAR residency-verification software to board after presentation
Summary
After a presentation on CLEAR residency-verification software, staff recommended placing a contract on the full-board agenda; staff said three annual runs, tight access controls and estimated savings (one regular nonresident ≈ $17,000, one special-education nonresident ≈ $46,000) justify the purchase despite privacy questions from members.
Mr. Spinner and staff presented a plan on June 11 for the Salisbury Township School District to consider a contract with CLEAR, a residency-verification service staff say will let the district spot-check student addresses, generate color-coded risk reports and support appeals to the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE).
The presenter said she first learned about CLEAR through the superintendent association and that the product can help the district “gather data to make a case” for disenrolling students or withholding charter/cyber tuition when residency does not match district records. “Informally, if this software allows us to find one student it pays for itself,” the presenter said.
District finance staff (Dawn) described three current verification methods—document checks at enrollment (leases, utility bills, tax records), a shared ledger of lease expirations maintained by building secretaries, and case-by-case investigations that may involve the school resource officer. Dawn said CLEAR ingests student identifying data from the district in CSV format, vets it against public and proprietary sources (tax records, vehicle registrations, credit-header data, toll and tow-vehicle images) and returns a color-coded report (green/yellow/red) indicating match confidence.
Dawn said the district would run the service three times per year (with additional spot checks and up to three special alerts annually), limit access to three credentialed users, and keep a usage log. She said the vendor does not store submitted student data and that nothing writes back into the district’s student information system (SAFIRE): "Nothing goes back into SAFIRE. It's a CSV file," Dawn said.
The board discussed security and legal exposure. A committee member asked whether using CLEAR would create a paper trail that could be subpoenaed or used to displace students; the presenter and Dawn replied much of the underlying information is public and that the district only compiles investigation packets when staff pursue action. Dawn cautioned that proprietary CLEAR data could require a subpoena to access directly from the vendor.
Staff presented pricing options: $13,952.40 for a 12-month contract or an average of $11,161 per year on a 36-month purchase, and recommended the three-year option because of a negotiated discount and an added user. Staff also proposed offsetting part of the cost by not renewing the Forecast5 financial contract and redirecting some existing budget dollars.
No formal vote was taken; presenters said the item will be placed on the full-board agenda next week for consideration. The operations portion concluded and the committee moved to finance items.
