If you sign it, they will come

Two of my students have now moved outside the boundary lines of the school which should mean that they would attend a different school in the district. These are "behavior kids" so they take up a lot of time, increase the number of referrals and, in this case anyway, decrease the test scores because neither of them are meeting their grade benchmarks yet. So you'd think the principal would be very happy for them to move on. Yet, in the past two days he has been proactive about filling out the paperwork in order to keep them here. He's signed the necessary documents and sent them on to district office. Does this happen elsewhere?