Longtime readers will recall the “Rogers Situation” that so entertained us all back in 2011. The short version: I wanted my daughter to go to pre-K at our local public school. Pre-K in DISD is only for poor kids (excuse me, economically disadvantaged kids). Unless there are extra spots open in the class. In which case, you can pay tuition to send your kid to a DISD school. As you might well imagine, very few parents are game to pay tuition to send their kids to a DISD school. Nonetheless, I was such a parent. The district wasn’t quite sure how to handle the process. Complications ensued. I emailed the district’s spokesman — someone I’ve dealt with over the course of many years, someone I know personally — and expressed my frustration. Things got worked out. My kid got into pre-K. And the Morning News and Dallas Observer reported that my kid took a spot away from a poor kid — which was patently untrue. Even after my kid got into pre-K, there were a ton of spots open across the district, including at my kid’s school.
It is happy news, then, that the district has formalized the tuition thing for un-poor parents who want to send their kids to pre-K. It’ll cost you $3,600 for nine months, or $400 per month. If memory serves, that’s about what we paid. Worth every penny. My daughter is now in the first grade and reads like a maniac. We owe that, in large part, to the foundation we got in DISD’s pre-K program. Here’s the full monty:
