Some Parents Still Upset With Revised Registration List at Bridesburg Elementary
By Pat Loeb
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A change in kindergarten registration procedures at a Philadelphia public elementary school has drawn the expected protest by some parents whose kids were accepted, then rejected, for admission next year.
Assistant school superintendent Cheryl Logan changed the order of the enrollment waiting list for the limited number of sought-after seats at Bridesburg Elementary School after an audit concluded that some parents had been allowed to register early or had been given preference, in violation of school district policy.
Logan said last week she knew it would disappoint some parents: "I feel very bad for them. I just feel that they're caught in the middle of something."
Indeed, disappointed parents claim it was the audit that was faulty, not the school's registration process.
Meanwhile, school secretary Paula Diaczuk says she has been registering students the same way for 22 years with no prior complaints.
She says some parents may have filled out forms early, but they weren't entered into the system until being hand-delivered to her when registration officially opened, on January 20th.
"No one was registered ahead of time," Diaczuk tells KYW Newsradio. "I have to see a license with the parent, and it has to match the face," she said.
Diaczuk says the only students who got preference were special education students -- and that, she believes, is in accordance with district policy.
She says after the controversy arose, she consulted a dozen other schools in the surrounding area and all reported giving special ed students preference for kindergarten placement because students who are not enrolled in their neighborhood schools get assigned to the nearest one with available seats. Sometimes that can be several miles away, which would be a hardship for students with special needs, she added.
Logan declined to discuss the matter further. She says she's focused on moving forward.
In an earlier interview, she said part of the problem is that the school responded to parent requests and added three more grades. It had gone from K-5 to K-8 but she says that because of limited space at the facility, that reduced the number of kindergarten classes, which are not mandatory, from four to two. That left just 60 seats for 105 eligible children.
She notes there are four first-grade classes, so all first-graders in the school's catchment area are guaranteed seats at the school.
