In May 2000, I moved to Eudora. I kept my children at East Heights until the end of the school year for fear it would make things hard for them to transfer with only weeks left. The only thing that made it hard for them was allowing them to go to East Heights to begin with.

Don’t get me wrong, there were a lot of good teachers. Here are the facts. My children were two years behind when they started Eudora schools. My daughter was in first grade. How do you get two years behind? My son in sixth grade had six hours of homework a night, things he had never learned at East Heights.

Now, two years later, both my children are still a little behind but making great improvements. But as a parent I learned something valuable; don’t be fooled by the Lawrence school system. Not every school gets an equal opportunity. To do it all over again after what we have been through, I would have never fought to keep the school open. To have your kids close by and so far behind, compared to across town with opportunity: You decide. I made the wrong choice.

Amy Barnhardt,

Eudora