At the end of this past school year, we thought we were in a good situation regarding school for the kids. The boy was no problem- he’s a grade schooler now and established in the local school system. The lass, on the other hand, is not. But, we were very impressed with the Catholic School pre-K program she was in and we enthusiastically reserved her spot for the coming year.
Alas, it was not meant to be. Or at least, not meant to be a sure thing.
The first inkling of trouble was a letter in July that the school’s principal had resigned. After 1 year. The letter introduced a new principal and stated unequivocally that it was steady-as-she-goes for the coming school year.
Then we had the message this Friday past. The K-8 portion of the school was going to be closing. The pre-K was still being offered, but without a secretary or school nurse available. They were investigating moving the class to another Catholic School in the area. Were we interested?
At this point, the Wife particularly was pissed. Giving parents notice 10 days before the start of the school year? How had this happened? For my part, I maintained an even keel. Flying off the handle, as is my usual MO for the unexpected, wasn’t going to solve any problems. Plus, that’s not exactly the example a parent wants to set for their kids.
Some online searching pretty quickly revealed how this situation had developed. In short, the priority of the local Catholic Diocese was financial. Their behavior over the summer basically created a whisper campaign that fostered an uncertainty about the school’s future to such an extent that parent’s started pulling their kids in droves. For example, enrollment in the lass’s pre-K dropped from 40+ to about 20 by the time we got the call.
Being transplants and not living in the town where the school was, we missed out on the scuttlebutt that might have tipped us off. So now we’re in the lurch. There is possibly a way forward with the lass’s class being moved to a different school. But our confidence in the program and it’s administration has taken a blow. At this point, most of our original reasoning for keeping her in that program is shot. Thanks to the Diocese’s rather feckless handling of the situation, it’s awful late to be looking for pre-K programs so our options are going to be limited.
We’re supposed to get more info today or tomorrow regarding her current situation. Naturally, we’re investigating other options with a bias towards jumping ship. Hopefully the situation gets resolved sooner than later.