Patrick Brennan

pbrennan@enquirer.com

Tasha Lindsey finally laid down in bed -- her own warm bed -- confident she had just achieved success after more than 24 hours of camping in the snow and bitter cold.

Lindsey, 27, of Westwood, joined a line of more than 70 parents Monday outside Fairview-Clifton German Language School for the chance to enroll her son in the coveted magnet school. She was told that her son had been accepted shortly after the application window opened around 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.

The acceptance was voided just hours later. Lindsey received a call informing her that her son was one of 17 students that had been "accepted to the school in error," she said.

Lindsey said she was told by Fairview's principal they were transferring her son to a wait-list.

"It was disappointing," Lindsey told The Enquirer on Wednesday. "It was still worth it, but, like, 17 (initial acceptances in error) - that's a lot. After this, they probably need to change this system of having us camp out.

"We thought we were accepted and we weren't. That hurts."

A discrepancy in the true number of available openings at Fairview occurred when an employee there did not correctly account for the kindergarten application lottery that took place Oct. 25-Nov. 1, said Cincinnati Public Schools spokeswoman Christine Wolff.

Camping scenes similar to those at Fairview played out as more than 100 parents camped out, some for weeks and in the midst of snow and bitter cold. They did this for the opportunity to register their kids for Cincinnati's highest-demand public elementary schools.

Hope still remains for the 17 families that were accidentally misled by the application process. An inquiry into the 17 voided acceptances prompted Cincinnati Public Schools Superintendent Mary Ronan's vow to correct the botched application process that left 17 families in the cold - literally and figuratively.

Ronan, who said she was still gathering information about the partially-botched application process, told The Enquirer she will push hard for the city's Board of Education to approve the creation of an entirely new kindergarten classroom to accommodate the families that were misled by the clerical error.

"I'm certainly just very confident that our board will look for additional space to accommodate these children in a nearby location," Ronan said. "We certainly apologize for our error... When you have loyal parents that will to go to these lengths for their children, we don't want to let them down."

Lindsey agrees.

"I hope it is something that actually happens," she said. "I think it is only fair. I guess they can do whatever they want. But if they do, that would be great. If they can't, it is what is."

Ronan declined to comment on the cost of creating this off-site classroom (the Fairview facility is already over-capacity, she said). Overhead costs will include renting the physical classroom space as well as hiring at least one additional teacher. She confirmed the costs would be covered by the Board of Education's general fund.

"A mistake was made," Wolff said. "It's an unfortunate mistake. (Fairview) Principal (Karen Mulligan) did call the parents to inform them of the mistake. We apologize for that... Our schools did their best to accommodate the parents that were camping out."

Now, parents on the wait list will wait for the next call from school officials and hope there's good news on the other end of the line. Other parents didn't have to contend with the Wednesday mix-up.

Casey Witherow, 34, of Cincinnati, was a virtual lock to succeed in enrolling his son at Fairview. He was No. 1 in line at the school after setting up camp on-campus Nov. 2. He spent 16 days, including his Nov. 6 birthday, at the head of the line in order to achieve success. Witherow said he had no regrets about the burden of camping out.

"Nobody wants to be the first one. Being the first one sucks," Witherow said prior to the opening of the application window . "It's a lot of work. You have to manage the line, develop rules. It's a lot of policing the village and keeping the village happy.

"...We're not just doing this to be able to say our kids go to a certain school. We're doing this to give our kids the best-possible start in life. A good elementary will mean a better high school, and then a better college."

Providing Cincinnati's children with a proper education shouldn't require weeks-long shows of endurance, most parents said. For now, camping was a necessary evil, they said.

As the opening of the application window neared on Tuesday night, Lindsey said she was nervous about getting her son enrolled. And hours after being letdown at Fairview, Lindsey was even more firm in her contempt for the current system. She said there should be an easier way to go about pursuing the best schools.

Some parents took off from work, and even synced their remaining 2014 vacation days with the Nov. 19 application window, allowing for time to set up camp sites.

"This shouldn't be happening," Lindsey said.

Ronan agreed that there should be an easier way for parents to access magnet schools, adding that the combination of a lottery and a first-come-first-served policy is the happiest medium available at the moment.

"Certainly, this could be easier," she said, "but we've tried a complete lottery in the past. What happened here is an anomaly."

Correction (Nov. 20): The article incorrectly stated Tasha Lindsey lives in Forest Park. She was raised there, but currently lives in Westwood.