Updated 5/1/2008 4:02:51 PM
ATLANTA -- Just before sunrise on pre-kindergarten registration day Thursday, the tempers of parents flared at Mary Lin Elementary in Candler Park.
"Why should the line start here?!" one parent yelled.
"Everybody's kids should have the same right," added another.
At stake: 20 pre-k spots in a coveted program. Some of the parents had camped out for three nights to get a good place in line.
Julia Murray was not a camper. She was the last one in line. "I'll take my child somewhere else," she said. "But I'm here because this system is unfair."
Atlanta Public schools agreed. On Monday, Superintendent Dr. Beverly Hall sent a letter to schools to discourage the practice of camping out, calling it "unfair" to people without the resources to do so (click here to read the entire letter sent home to parents).
But the parents who camped out outside Mary Lin did not see that letter until two days into their camp out.
"They told us to come up with an orderly line on our own. We did that," John Shroeder said. "When they came down here today, they took our orderly line and flipped it on its head."
Shroeder was among the parents who stayed the night. At 8 a.m. Thursday, he was unsure if he would get a spot for his daughter: "I don't know what's going on."
The confusion boiled over again when registration started. There were some disagreements over who was in the official line first.
Both campers and non-campers, those that got a spot and those that did not agree on one thing: Atlanta Public Schools needs a better system.
Right now, all Pre-kindergarten programs in the Atlanta Public Schools system have parents sign up through a first-come, first-serve basis. A spokesman for APS said there would be changes next year, but he could not yet say exactly what those changes would be.
