When Private and Parochial Schools Use Credits As Collateral

A featured article in the February 14th, 2011, issue of City Limits reports on the practice at some private and parochial schools of withholding educational records until tuition debts are paid. Nelson Mar, Senior Staff Attorney and Education Law
Specialist at Legal Services NYC–Bronx, explains how such policies, while technically legitimate, can threaten the best interests of a child.

From the article :

Students in public schools can access their records as outlined in the Family Education Rights Protection Act, or FERPA, because the schools receive public funding, according to Nelson Mar, Senior Staff Attorney and Education Law Specialist at Legal Services NYC–Bronx, which provides free legal counsel to low-income people. But "private schools are not governed by much of state regulations or education law."

Because private schools may hold student records as collateral against future payment, children wind up in a kind of educational limbo.

"It is a little striking, for a school that is founded on principles of faith, that they take such a hard line with tuition," Mar says. Acknowledging that state law and individual contracts make the arrangement legally legitimate, Mar adds: "All of those macro factors don't, at the end of the day, make the child whole."

[…]

Sariba's story may still have a happy ending: The family is working to resolve their debts and hopes that St Ursula's will release Sariba's transcript in time for graduation, this June. But her hopes of being able to attend college are "pretty much exhausted" now, according to guidance counselor Jashaun Sadler, as so many application deadlines and test dates have passed. And Sariba's dilemma is far from unique, Sadler told City Limits: "Sariba is only one of too many students whose academic goals are held hostage by institutions entrusted with their educational welfare."

One St. Ursula's staff member, who asked not to be identified because she was speaking without permission, said that other students were in situations comparable to Sariba's, with families unable to pay, and children unable to progress in other high school placements because they didn't have their official records.

Decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, the staffer said, based on the child's academic record, behavior in school, attendance, and the family's financial history of timely or skipped payments.

According to the city's Department of Education, decisions by private and parochial schools to withhold education records is off-limits for DOE intervention. Public schools do their best to try to get whatever information they can, says spokesman Jack Zarin-Rosenberg, but it's up to the former school to send the records once requested. If the private school declines the public school's request, the matter is left to the family.

"The reality is, it's a contract situation, governed by a tuition contract," says Mar, the legal services worker in the Bronx. "It's obviously unfortunate, because it leaves parents with very few options."

Read the full story at CityLimits.org.