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In March, a frustrated parent wrote an email to the Hazelwood School District. Her daughter had been kicked out of Jamestown Elementary School after the district conducted an investigation into where the family lived.

In the email, the mother complained that her daughter had been wrongly removed and could not return to school.

“How is it considering a student's well being, to be pulled out of school less than three months before the end of the year,” she wrote.

The mother’s email is one of more than 100 communications between families and the Hazelwood School District appealing decisions that children could not attend its schools. The Midwest Newsroom and St. Louis Public Radio obtained the trove of emails through a public records request.

The mother, whose name is redacted in the records, wrote that even after her child was removed from school, district officials could not answer her questions about the investigation — nor why the school district even conducted the investigation.

“Hazelwood took it upon themselves to hire an investigator and follow me and my child, causing anxiety and fearing [sic] for my life not knowing who is watching us,” the mother wrote. “I feel like my daughter has been targeted and singled out for no apparent reason and with no explanation.”

Missouri students attending public school must enroll where their guardians pay property taxes — with some exceptions. Many districts use investigations to confirm where students live. The communications between parents and guardians and the Hazelwood School District — amounting to more than a thousand pages — paint the picture of an inflexible and inscrutable residency investigation system.

Other records obtained for this article show that the Hazelwood School District has ramped up the rate of its investigations in the past five school years and appears to be conducting significantly more than other local school districts.

(To be continued in the article)