Quote Quoting cdwjava
View Post
I do sympathize with mom's plight. However, the school has debts to pay and using the debt as a "write-off" does not pay those bills. Many private schools operate on a razor thin margin as it is. Even if they did not, it is not their responsibility to take a loss every time a parent cannot pay. Really, the only leverage they have against parents who do not pay their bills is to withhold their child's transcripts. After all, she agreed to pay the tuition when she signed the contract. Making another agreement to pay off a debt she has already legally pledged to pay does not suddenly make it any more super-legal. Double-super-secret-probation does not make certain the debt will be paid. In fact, what might prevent mom from reneging on the new payment plan once the transcripts had been delivered? Absent that particular leverage, the school has nothing. It is a sad fact, but the private school has no specific obligation to that child aside from what they are contractually obligated to provide.

And the private school is not infringing upon anyone's right to go to school. In fact, even the public school is not infringing upon that right as they have agreed to accept the child after they have made the proper assessments. The public school DOES have a vested interest in properly assessing the child and placing them in the proper academic environment as this is in the child's best interest. To that end, without proper transcripts they would have to assess the child through whatever process they have set up. And, given that there are probably no more than ten weeks left in school, this is not a likely prospect and it may well be that the child might have to take summer programs or repeat some or all of their current grade year. Yes, that sucks, and I'd be miffed if I was the parent here, too. Though, if I was running into a financial problem I would have withdrawn my student before I owed too much money, and I would have transferred the child to public school immediately.

This is not the fault of the private school, and to blame them is to level blame on the wrong party.
I agree private schools have to be tough on unpaid balances. I also agree since mom has not paid tuition has she agreed to, it is unlikely the school will accept a payment plan. We don't know how many month behind she is. She knew if she didn't find another job quick, this was going to happen. Where is dad ? Why can't he help ? Maybe she could sell some things ? Maybe she could ask someone to cosign a loan.

I don't know about where the OP is. But, where I live if a child has more than 20 days unexcused in the 9 weeks, they cannot be promoted to the next grade. I don't remember how that applies if the child is not enrolled. Home schooling is not as easy as a lot of people think it is. Where I live, the child has to be tested to ensure they are learning what they should.