This move by the Archdiocese Of Baltimore would tick me off. This may be an example that voucher opponents may use in the future.
There is no freedom of movement here.
Transfer edict angers parents Catholic education chief bans midyear enrollment; Three schools merging into one; Decision made to prevent 'mass exodus' by pupils
By Lynn Anderson
Sun StaffDecember 27, 2004
Plans by the Archdiocese Of Baltimore to combine three Catholic schools next fall to cut costs and boost enrollment are angering some parents of children who attend.
They are particularly upset about an edict by the Catholic school system's superintendent prohibiting other schools in the archdiocese from accepting midyear transfers from the affected schools - St. Anthony of Padua, St. Dominic and Shrine of the Little Flower schools - for fear of a mass exodus.
Parents who don't want their children to attend the new combined school are calling Superintendent Ronald J. Valenti's decree - issued in a letter to principals shortly after the Nov. 17 merger announcement - unfair. They worry that if they wait too long to change where they enroll their children, all the open seats will be taken.
"He wants everyone to give the new school a chance, and so he is strong-arming everyone and not allowing them to transfer in the middle of the school year," said Lilly Santmyer, the mother of a third-grader at St. Dominic School in Hamilton. "It is unheard-of. I don't get it."
Parents say they are concerned that the new school - housed at St. Anthony's in Gardenville and named after Mother Mary Lange, a Haitian who became a nun after opening the first Catholic school for black children in Baltimore in 1828 - will offer a different curriculum and larger class sizes. They say detailed information, including preschool schedules, has been slow to come out.