Reader response: Parents left 'high and dry'

Friday, March 19, 2010

I am a parent that is directly affected by your vote tonight regarding not allowing the children that are already accepted into the Normal Park pre-k program for 2010, to be grandfathered into the school.

I live in Brainierd and am zoned for an underperforming school. We can not afford private school and we can not afford to move into the Normal Park school zone, so this was the only option we had to get out daughter into Normal Park. We followed the required protocol and over a year ago, my family called into the school in order to get a spot in the 2010 pre-k program, which would then allow her to be grandfathered into the elementary school. This program is very expensive, so my husband got a second job 9 months ago so that we could begin to save up for the expensive tuition. Now, we are told that she will not be guaranteed a spot into the school beyond pre-k. Why would we pay $5,000 for pre-k if she won't be able to continue at that school beyond this point? We are not and can not but where else are we going to send her because at this point all other programs deadlines have passed! We would have explored other optioned if we even knew this was a possibility! We had the rug pulled out from under us and now we have no options. We did what we were told to do and now we are left high and dry! I was told that there is room for the additional 38 students AND still room to grandfather in the 12 students that were already guaranteed spots. Why not do this? This way everyone wins and next year change the rules before people call in and get extra jobs in order to save for tuition.

I understand if you need to change the requirements and rules for future classes but you need to honor what was promised to us! It is completely unfair to change the rules at this point when all other schools are already full. What are we suppose to do now?

Please help!

Courtney Altfillisch