Notifying private school of withdrawal 4 days after deadline

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would you throw money at a lawyer when you have a contract? That would just be losing more money.
A classmate of my dd changed to public when her family ended up moving to a good district over the summer. She attended the first week of public, said she was sick for 2 weeks and attended the private and then went back to public.

+1 on not bothering to get a lawyer. There is no point. You signed a valid contract.

Public schools are a lot more fussy about absences than private. Two weeks is a long time to be absent and I can't see how you could be out that long without a doctor's note. I think you would just need to wait until the two weeks was up to enroll.

That said, if it were me I would just tell my kid that you missed the deadline, she was going to private next year, and be done with it. If your child was miserable I would have a different answer, but there's no way I could spend that amount of money for nothing. She can go to public next year.

This is a ridiculous answer. Please go google "sunk costs," then come back and revise.

I'm well aware of what a sunk cost is, genius. But if the kid felt that strongly about going to public school, she could have decided that well before June 1st. Tough luck, kiddo. I'm not going to throw up my hands and say, "oh well, sunk costs!" and spend $50,000 on an education so my kid can go to public school on a whim. Nope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Schools absolutely have gone after contract breakers who try not pay the tuition. An acquaintance at a previous school tried to do get out of a contract and failed. That doesn’t mean your school necessarily will, but it certainly happens.

Go to the DC Court Case search and search any private school in DC. They definitely go after contract breakers.

[Anonymous]

Here's an idea...make your tuition a donation...send your kid to public school and then the school you are pulling out of can give your tuition to a child as a scholarship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think your best bet is to contact the school, admit that this was 100% your screw up, but ask if they can consider even a partial refund if they are able to fill the spot from the wait list. The key here is to be clear that they don't owe you anything and you know you're asking for their kindness (while also pointing out that if they're able to fill the spot, they're not suffering any hardship from your withdrawal.)

They already contacted the school. School said no.

Not actually clear from the OP how much dialog they've had with the school. The key I think is not just a basic email exchange "We're leaving, can we have our money back?" "No," but rather to accept responsibility, acknowledge that it's your mistake, and ask for grace. It's amazing how far that can get you (v. "we're hiring a lawyer!")