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Trying to take my daughter out of the private pre-school but owners are asking for full year payment. What are my options?

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marvelous_ragu

New member
My daughter is enrolled in a private pre-school/daycare in New Jersey, the center recently had owners and management change (in Sept 2019). After the change standards are getting degraded. Experienced teachers are resigning, new teachers have little to no experience.

We want to take our child out so gave discontinuation notice, and were first told by acting director that we would lose one month’s fees, which is basically a deposit. Along with us, many other parents gave the discontinuation notice, so new owner updated the older manual (which was inherited from previous owner) with the clause that indicates that parents owe the amount for entire academic year, and if parents don't pay the amount then they will have to bear the late fee, legal and collection agency charges. They updated the manual last week but effective date of manual was back dated from Sept 2019.

They emailed this new manual to all parents after our discontinuation notice. Most of the parents have denied their approval to this new manual. New owners are telling us that they are evaluating this contract/manual with their lawyers and they will get back to us. But they have also indicated that we may have to abide by the new manual since we have signed a contract. Now the contract which was signed by us is from 2017, which we signed with previous owners.
None of the parents have signed anything with new owners.

The new owners will continue to send the invoices for the remaining months and if we don't pay then our credit will be screwed. I am not sure what our options are ? Shall we hire a lawyer? or talk to Mayor ? or talk to state authority ?

The loss here is around $5k for me, and for other parents who have full time services with them it is around $8k.

Any help or guidance will be appreciated. Thanks in advance and apologies for the long post.
 


PayrollHRGuy

Senior Member
You need to get with all of the parents and talk to a lawyer together. I think a firmly written letter explaining to the new owners that they don't get to change things like that after you have already notified them of termination will go a long way and more importantly put the new owners on notice that they will be facing a number of lawsuits or one big one if they try to do this.
 
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LdiJ

Senior Member
You need to get with all of the parents and talk to a lawyer together. I think a firmly written letter explaining to the new owners that they don't get to change things like that after you have already notified them of termination will go a long way and more importantly put the new owners on notice that they will be facing a number of lawsuits or one big one if they try to dd this.
I most emphatically agree with this advice. You need to get out in front of it before they start sending it to collections. You need to scare them off. They are doing this because they are desperate for cash because everyone is quitting on them. You need to scare them into realizing that things could get a lot worse for them if they don't back off.
 

marvelous_ragu

New member
What does your contact say about withdrawing from the school? Did you sign off on the new manual?
Nope, none of the parents have signed on the new manual. Actually, the manual which talks about the policies doesn't require any signature. There was a separate form which we signed back in 2017 which says that we agree to manual and other policies. The new owner updated the manual and is considering our consent based on that form which was signed on 2017.
 

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