So I have been meaning to write about this topic for a while and just never got around to it. I think mainly because we were so mad by it but now, things have calmed down. It has to do with public schools and registration.

At the beginning of the month, it was the day to enroll my daughter at the Elementary School for Kindergarten registration. I took off work that day and me and my husband both went together. Let me start off by staying the reason we moved to the area that we did is because the elementary school here is the top rated school in our county and we knew this is where we wanted her to attend. So we found a place right around the corner from the school and have been living here for over a year now.
When registering for kindergarten, they sure make you jump through every hoop in the book. We had to bring her official state issued birth certificate, shot records, her social security card, both of our driver's license, two utility bills, and our entire lease agreement notarized.....it was a lot to keep track of.

So I was able to get all that together and we went to the school. Stood in line for a while, spent about an hour filling out paperwork and then when I walked up to the counter with everything, the lady looked at our lease and said, "oh, you live in an apartment? I'm sorry, your daughter cannot go to school here." I thought I heard her wrong and she told us that we would have to go down to the school board and talk to them about school placement.

I was a bit shocked. We didn't know what was going on. We kept asking, how can this be right...this is the only school in the city limits and what does it mean that she can't go to school here. The lady just instructed us where the school board was and to go discuss our questions with them.
So we went down there and talked to someone. We were there for a very long time arguing this. Basically the short end of the story is that if you live in an apartment, you have to be transferred to the next city over to attend school because they feel they need to make it more "diversified". That is some bull crap. So we have a school that our child can walk to and now she will have to attend school in a city that I am not comfortable with her going into and the school is 30 mins away.

They said that the government made this a law about three years ago for this county. Only if you live in a house, can your child attend school here. We live in the most nicest area over here and of course, all the Orlando Magic basketball players live over here and I guess they feel if you have to rent an apartment, then your child is too poor to be around the rich kids. So they ship them off to the next town over which is known for it's "not so good crime and overall bad part". However, I highly am upset because I don't consider apartment living here to be "poor" living. Not when the average monthly rent is around $1500 a month. I think in our area it's $1100-1800 a month for an apartment and we have looked into renting a house but those are around $2000-$4000 a month and I can't afford that for two bedrooms. Although I have been trying to rent a house for years now. Just can't afford it at the moment. Only apartments are in our budget.

If I wanted my child to attend school there, I would have moved there. But we moved here and now there's a debate going on. So now we have to just wait to see where the government finds her fit to attend one of the schools over there based on "diversity" and then we can register her for kindergarten. They said it would be anywhere between now and one week before school begins. We want to fight this. We asked if we want to put in a transfer can we? The lady told us we could, but since she is on the school board, she will not approve it. No one that lives in an apartment is allowed to attend school in this city. It's against government policy.

She gave us three options: 1) Move into a house. 2) Keep her home for a year and wait til next year to try again and see if she gets in after we have found a house {I'm not having a 7 year old in kindergarten. No way}. and 3) Home-school her.

So much for help, right? The longer we live here, the more I start hating how backwards this area really is. My husband wants to get a lawyer and fight this. There should be no reason if we live right around the corner from the school why she should have to be transported to a whole other city. Makes no sense at all since we are in the school district zone. Like I said, this place has so many things backwards. Remember my story not too long ago about the cops? Yea, doesn't this sound like the same thing? Gosh, I really want to get away from Florida most days.