Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t sign contracts if you can’t pay your bills.

Don't buy luxury BMWs if you can’t pay your bills.

Don't apply for luxury private schools if you can’t pay your bills.

Wrong, because these businesses are not asking you to pay the day you receive your service. They are forcing you to lock into a very expensive contract SEVERAL MONTHS before the service starts, which increases the risk that the customer has a change in their economic resource - job loss being the most common - and then they are forcing you to agree to pay for the WHOLE length of service, which is a great length of time.

This is nothing like buying an item in a one-and-done deal.

The whole private school financial ecosystem is EXPLOITATIVE in the extreme. They get away with it because it's not a financially regulated industry, and parents hesitate to put up a fight because they feel their children's education are at play, and schools often become their social sphere. The problem on the school side is that demand and retention is hard to predict and manage, and most school administrators are not savvy financial managers. So they err on the side of extreme financial duress, because they can, instead of making the effort of thinking through more socially acceptable and humane options.

It is a completely voluntary ecosystem. It cannot be exploitive if families are wanting in without coercion.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Heck if I know, but this is the US and people sue for anything. The point of the suit is to draw widespread attention to the practice, which then may or may not result in very wealthy schools deciding its better to just adopt a rational policy than be drug into the court of public opinion.

Translation: I've never practiced litigation law before and have no clue about how things work.

Yet…there are a gazillion lawsuits in this country for lesser reasons. Somehow they exist.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Surprised people just focusing on Sandy Springs. For the Landon lawsuit in the article it read as though the family was encouraged by the school to hold a spot for their son even though the school knew the family wouldn’t know if he was going to the baseball training school until after June 1 and then school sued for full tuition when the family decided on baseball school June 12.

I feel bad for the woman. Not the Landon parent. He had been at the school as parent for years. He understands how the enrollment contract works. He was juggling Landon and the IMG school to figure out which he wanted. This is exactly why schools have enrollment contracts.

Agree. The Landon parent knew exactly what he was doing.

Anonymous wrote:Heck if I know, but this is the US and people sue for anything. The point of the suit is to draw widespread attention to the practice, which then may or may not result in very wealthy schools deciding its better to just adopt a rational policy than be drug into the court of public opinion.

Translation: I've never practiced litigation law before and have no clue about how things work.

Anonymous wrote:Surprised people just focusing on Sandy Springs. For the Landon lawsuit in the article it read as though the family was encouraged by the school to hold a spot for their son even though the school knew the family wouldn’t know if he was going to the baseball training school until after June 1 and then school sued for full tuition when the family decided on baseball school June 12.

I feel bad for the woman. Not the Landon parent. He had been at the school as parent for years. He understands how the enrollment contract works. He was juggling Landon and the IMG school to figure out which he wanted. This is exactly why schools have enrollment contracts.

Anonymous wrote:I also blame the SSFS admissions office. They need to do a much, much better job of explaining to parents what it means to sign a contract of admission - especially for parents who are brand new to the private school system. Our contract (with a different private school) is 18 pages long. Who actually reads all the fine print?

The contracts are actually fairly straightforward. I feel bad for this woman and glad she doesn’t have to pay. But adults need to understand what a contract means.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a huge piece of information missing from this article. SSFS does not start giving financial aid until Kindergarten. This is stated on their financial aid page and has been for years. This child would have been in PK, so financial aid was never going to be an option. Between the parent's lack of reading the contract before signing, and an apparent lack of financial aid research, I fail to see how the school is at fault.

No doubt that the school is legally correct and that the parent was unsophisticated and naive about how things work. But that doesn't change the school's moral culpability, IMO.

+1. I agree that the school should not have gone after this poor woman. However, in general schools have to entice these contracts. If
If a school’s budget is 80-90 percent dependent on tuition, they can’t let parents off the hook for tuition that they are contracted to pay after a certain date. If 5 families pull out, that is possibly 200,000 or more in lost revenue that many schools cannot afford.

NP. Most of the private schools in the DMV do not have large endowments like Sidwell. Rather, their operating budgets are composed of tuition dollars with a small chunk coming from their annual fund.

Also, Sandy Springs and must of these schools don’t have rolling admissions so back filling is not often possible. The DMV independent schools (Sidwell, Sandy Springs, Burke, Landon, Washington International School etc.) are a part of the AISGW and all operate on the same schedule. The admission seasons starts in the Fall. Applications are due in early January and decisions are out in Mid-march and families can withdraw by May 31 and contracts are binding on June 1st. From Sept to Match there are open houses, webinars, and private school fairs that spell out this information. Not to mention in the interview process they generally walk you through the timeline. This mom had many opportunities to ask questions and gain and understanding of the process but for whatever reason that didn’t happen.

I recently applied to a number of private schools this past fall. As many of you on this board know, there is a ton of gaming and trading that happens once decisions are out. Waitlist change or don’t change but there is a ton of outreach to accepted families making sure they know the timeline. The June 1st deadline gives schools clarity regarding their budgets and if they’ve fallen short they have two month to plug the enrollment hole. If they’re lucky they may have a waitlist but they still have to work through the list to see if anyone hasn’t committed. Of course schools like Sidwell will have a full list but not every school will. The list may suddenly shrink as the 2nd/3rd/4th applicant choices have moved on and chosen a different school.

While I ultimately the Sandy Springs decision was illogical, I also think that this mom failed to read anything, she also failed to ask questions and do any research on how private schools worked. She made assumptions knowing that she was not familiar with these institutions. Luckily, the new administration did the right thing.

I guess many of the Catholic schools are larger, but why is it they seem to have far more lenient policies on withdrawing?

I think for SJC you had until like 7/31 to commit for the upcoming year, but you could pick a payment plan to pay over 10 months and if you withdrew at any time, you just lost what you had paid but you had no obligation to future payments.

Maybe they are unique among the WCAC?

Anonymous wrote:What would be the cause of action in said lawsuit? Just trying to see how you survive a 12(b)(6) motion.

Heck if I know, but this is the US and people sue for anything. The point of the suit is to draw widespread attention to the practice, which then may or may not result in very wealthy schools deciding its better to just adopt a rational policy than be drug into the court of public opinion.

I'm sure the poor person that is the subject of this thread isn't the only MC or LMC person (or a family that lost their job or had to move, etc.) where this happened.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t sign contracts if you can’t pay your bills.

Don't buy luxury BMWs if you can’t pay your bills.

Don't apply for luxury private schools if you can’t pay your bills.

Wrong, because these businesses are not asking you to pay the day you receive your service. They are forcing you to lock into a very expensive contract SEVERAL MONTHS before the service starts, which increases the risk that the customer has a change in their economic resource - job loss being the most common - and then they are forcing you to agree to pay for the WHOLE length of service, which is a great length of time.

This is nothing like buying an item in a one-and-done deal.

The whole private school financial ecosystem is EXPLOITATIVE in the extreme. They get away with it because it's not a financially regulated industry, and parents hesitate to put up a fight because they feel their children's education are at play, and schools often become their social sphere. The problem on the school side is that demand and retention is hard to predict and manage, and most school administrators are not savvy financial managers. So they err on the side of extreme financial duress, because they can, instead of making the effort of thinking through more socially acceptable and humane options.

What would be the cause of action in said lawsuit? Just trying to see how you survive a 12(b)(6) motion.

Anonymous wrote:A class action? You mean a law? A rule? None of that would be legal.

They could adopt the policy and even agree to a standard, but these are private businesses without federal funding.

Not a law...a lawsuit that names every top private school in the DMV and claims that having a policy whereby you can force someone to pay tuition when you are easily able to backfill that spot (at least for the top privates), or when you never paid the deposit, is no longer enforceable.

Some of the top privates have endowments in excess of most private colleges.

Sidwell's $80MM doesn't sound like much, but the median private college endowment is only $42MM.

Anonymous wrote:Don’t sign contracts if you can’t pay your bills.

Don't buy luxury BMWs if you can’t pay your bills.

Don't apply for luxury private schools if you can’t pay your bills.

Anonymous wrote:A class action? You mean a law? A rule? None of that would be legal.

They could adopt the policy and even agree to a standard, but these are private businesses without federal funding.

Do you think the law doesn’t apply to private businesses?