HOW TO APPLY
Kindergarten applications for CSAS and CSLA will be made available Tuesday. Completed forms can be turned in from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. on Sept. 18 at CSAS.
Administrators for two local magnet schools say they still want to change the first-come, first-served admission process for their schools, but not yet.
Parents traditionally have begun lining up and camping outside Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences in October, days or weeks before officials accept kindergarten applications at the end of the month.
This year, the first parents started forming a line Aug. 28. School officials questioned the sanity and equity of the process.
“We’ve never seen a line this early. I mean, we were just getting school started,” said Chattanooga School for the Liberal Arts principal Krystal Scarbrough, whose school shares the kindergarten enrollment process with CSAS.
Parents of 94 kindergartners already have put their names on the list and are considered first in line for 100 kindergarten spots at CSAS and CSLA, Scarbrough said.
She said that because the information on websites and from both schools indicates the first-come, first-served basis, and because so many people already had lined up, district officials decided they couldn’t change the rules this year.
The only people potentially ahead of the 94 are those whose older children already attend one of the two schools, or who are employees there.
Scarbrough also said that rising kindergartners who don’t get into one of the two schools for next fall are kept on the list. If space opens up later in first grade, for example, those students can transfer.
Randy Steele, whose daughter is No. 24 on the waiting list, said parents fought to keep procedures the same this year. More than 400 signed petitions after administrators threatened to change the process, Steele said.
“There was no word, no note, nothing on the website that said it would be any different this year,” Steele said. “The line and list is the best way to do this, but the school needs to regulate it more.”
The first parent to get in line makes the rules for the list that year, Steele said.
This year, the parents must meet back on Friday to confirm their positions on the list. Until then, parents already signed up will take turns camping out on the street behind CSAS in shifts, Steele said.
Kelli Gauthier covers K-12 education in Hamilton County for the Times Free Press. She started at the paper as an intern in 2006, crisscrossing the region writing feature stories from Pikeville, Tenn., to Lafayette, Ga. She also covered crime and courts before taking over the education beat in 2007. A native of Frederick, Md., Kelli came south to attend Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in print journalism. Before newspapers, ...
OK, I am starting the line for YEAR AFTER NEXT, NOW and since I make the rules, my first rule is....hmmmmmm...let's see...all other parents must thumb wrestle for the positions, (except for my friends that I'll tell to hurry and get in line after me)...
I am sorry, but it is ridiculous that one (or several) pushy parents started things so early, likely tried to keep it hush hush until friends and relatives got in line, and then, when called out for the over the top time frame, "whined" until they got their way.
I have one child who graduated from CSAS and one who hasn't. Things weren't nearly so insane years ago. We actually didn't make it in the first year and guess what? Life wasn't over,the world did not stop, and my child was no worse the wear for having attended Normal Park kindergarten back before it became a magnet school. In fact, his kindergarten teacher was one of the best in the school system.
I feel bad for the parents who had high hopes and were left behind this time, though.
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