READ BEFORE YOU SIGN

By CAROLE DICKEY
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Semyya Cunningham of New Tampa is in a world of hurt. She’s in a spot because she signed a contract for a private school when things were going right – and is now stuck with the terms of the contract after things fell apart.

It all started in 2005 while Cunningham, an emergency department and critical care registered nurse, was caring for a patient at University Community Hospital. The patient was proud of the top-notch education his daughter was receiving at Academy at the Lakes in Land O’ Lakes, Cunningham said. Cunningham was so impressed she enrolled her daughter Ryyana there for the 2006-07 school year.
“She’s very bright and precocious,” Cunningham said.

After Ryyana was tested and accepted by the school, Cunningham signed a contract, paid a $400 registration fee, and was all set to start her daughter at the school in August 2006, Cunningham said.

In April, Cunningham’s situation started to unravel.

First the family of five, consisting of parents Semyya and Ryan and their three children, moved from a rented apartment to their own home in Live Oaks Preserve. Then Cunningham got pregnant, which turned into a high-risk pregnancy, she said, and in July she was forced to quit her high-stress job in the emergency department.

Realizing she hadn’t heard from Academy, she contacted them in July, she said, and at that time was given information about the cost of uniforms, lunches, before/after school care and busing.

“Things that I did not know would not be included in the tuition. I hadn’t factored in all that,” she said. Also, the before/after care hours would not accommodate a nurse’s 12-hour shift schedule, she said.

Although the before/after school care hours and some additional fees are covered in the contract, she admits she was too eager to hold her daughter’s spot in the school to fully understand what she was signing.

So, in July she wrote the academy to tell them Ryyana would not be attending the school, she said.

But on the first day of school, she received a call from staff at Academy wondering why Ryyana wasn’t there. When Cunningham mentioned the letter she had sent, they said they had never received it. They reminded Cunningham she had signed a contract and had not opted out of it before school started, and that a place had been held for Ryyana, and they would be in touch with her, Cunningham said.

The contract specifies when the parent returns the signed contract to the school, the child will be enrolled for the entire school year, responsible for the entire year’s tuition. Cunningham did sign and return the contract with the enrollment fee.

The contract allows a 75 percent reduction in tuition costs due to certain changed circumstances if the school is notified in writing by June 1 or a 50 percent reduction if notified before the beginning of the academic year.

Cunningham said she wrote a letter, but Dorie Burnham, financial officer at Academy, said there is no record of the letter.

Because Academy is an independent school, it establishes its budget for the coming school year on enrollment commitments made in the spring of the proceeding year, according to Richard Wendlek, the school’s founding head. The school had three parents on a wait list who could have filled Ryyana’s spot, had the school been notified in time to enroll one of them, he said.

“I used to tell parents this: ‘Well, which teacher do you want me to go to and say you’re not going to get your paycheck this time because we couldn’t collect tuition to support it?’ That’s basically the bottom line,” Wendlek said.

Today Cunningham is plagued by calls from a collection agency. Her attempts to work out a payment plan she can afford have been denied, she said. The school refuses to talk to her, she said, since the matter is out of their hands. The collection agency demands that the bill, now exceeding $9,000, be paid in full with a maximum of three payments, she said.

“I wish to God I had never signed that contract,” she said. “I was stupid, naïve and hasty, but they did not handle this situation like professionals either. If the lady I spoke with on the phone had told me on the first day of school when she called how serious this was, I would have sent my child there, just to avoid this fiasco.”

She is now working as a nurse for the James A. Haley Veteran’s Administration Center in Tampa.

Meanwhile, Ryyana graduated from kindergarten at Primrose School at Cross Creek May 22 with honors, she said.