Private school re-enrollment and deposit
I am curious and would love to hear from parents who have changed school from elementary to middle and middle to high school.
if you do not want to remain at your current school even though your school has upper grades, do you still sign the contract and pay the non-refundable deposit, although you would not choose to attend your current school if you are accepted at one of several schools you applied?
our current school would be our last option but if we don’t get into any of the schools we applied, we would not have anywhere else to go unless we secure a spot with a deposit or hope that there is a spot for us after the admissions decision comes out. Our current school has not been full in the past and historically has had a rolling admission.
The deposit is a lot of money, so we are wondering if we should sign and spend that money, although we don’t really want to stay at our current school or trust that our child will get in somewhere. We haven’t signed up for our local public school.
Parent Replies
Short answer: yes, you sign the contract and put down the deposit if that is your backup plan. If you expect that your school won't be fully enrolled, you can gamble and see whether there's space if your child doesn't get offered a spot elsewhere. If you really don't want to stay at your current school, though, I'd skip the deposit and put in a late application to public school as your backup instead. Good luck with the process!
Hi! We were in this EXACT scenario a few years back. Our deposit ($1000) was due two weeks before we would hear from schools that we had applied to for our daughter. We ended up paying the deposit, and two weeks later when she was accepted at another school, we decided to transfer her. I called school #1 and asked for a refund of the deposit (ha!) knowing they could fill her spot 10 times over (we were also on financial aid and I played that card, too.) I called them during the "quiet week" when I knew they could easily get someone off the waitlist. Of course they would not refund the money. I even went to friends with spouses on the Board, asking if they would help us get the deposit back and they said it was a lost cause. I did finally convince the school to let us call the deposit a "donation" as we were no longer "receiving goods or services" for the money. We ended up calling the $1000 a write off. Groan. I'm also a teacher in a private school (not related to my daughter's schools) and every single year there are families who don't pay the deposits on time for a variety of reasons. The school NEVER EVER kicks them out or takes away their spot. It makes me think of our situation years ago and wonder whether we could have held out on paying the deposit and still kept our daughter's spot at school #1 if we had wanted it. A definite gamble, but I think it happens way more than we know. All this to say, it may be worth a talk with your current school about an extension (maybe you don't give the exact reason if you don't want to....just say you need some more time to get funds etc.) Good luck!
We had a similar issue. We can't swing two private school tuitions now. My older son is in private school and younger in public. However, next year we applied to a private school for our younger son. I did not sign the contract for my older son because it would have locked is in for a year. Sadly, that means we lost the aid we were getting. However, we did not lose his spot as there are spots open but that's what we had to do. I believe some schools offer insurance in case you need to back out of a contract but I'm not sure all private school do. I did enroll both sons in the public school we're zoned to just in case, however. If you have that option, you may want to explore if that's something that's a possibility.