Officials Say One Philadelphia Public School Played Favorites With Enrollments
By Pat Loeb
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The School District of Philadelphia says it has uncovered irregularities in the way one of its elementary schools was enrolling students for kindergarten.
The school district begins accepting kindergarten applications on January 20th. At a few schools where demand is high and space is limited, parents know to get there early that day.
Warren O'Connell believes he was one of the first to show up at Bridesburg Elementary School, but earlier this month he was told his son hadn't made the cutoff for one of the 60 kindergarten seats available.
"Me being one of two dozen people that were there at 9 o'clock on January 20th, my son ended up being number 73," he tells KYW Newsradio.
O'Connell convinced assistant superintendent Cheryl Logan that something was amiss. She conducted an audit and found that the school violated district policy in a number of ways.
"Parents registering prior to the registration date, some parents had never come to register," she noted, adding that preference was also given to students already in the school's pre-K programs or with siblings at the school.
But, Logan says, "The policy is very clear -- it's first come, first served."
She says the district rearranged the entrance list to conform with district policies and there's a substantial difference in who will actually get into the school.
"(Some) parents are going to be disappointed," she said today. "These are five-year-olds we're talking about. Wanting to have them close to where you live is something everybody can understand. I feel very bad for them."
Logan says part of the problem is the school expanded to include grades six, seven, and eight, which reduced the number of kindergarten seats.
There was no immediate word on whether school staff would be disciplined.
