More schools offer to take in students of shuttered CDSL

Photo from the website of the Colegio de San Lorenzo.

MANILA, Philippines — More schools have offered to absorb the displaced students and staff of the shuttered Colegio de San Lorenzo (CDSL), including Quezon City University, Thames International, UST Angelicum College, Trinity College of Asia and APEC V. Luna.

Orlando Casimiro, head of Quezon City’s legal department, said other institutions have also reached out directly to CDSL, including College of St. Catherine Quezon City, Samson College of Science and Technology, St. Joseph College, St. Bernadette of Lourdes College, and De La Salle Araneta University.

Among the schools, UST Angelicum provided details that would be of help to the students who were suddenly without a school.

UST Angelicum on Wednesday said it would open its doors to the displaced students and promised to match CDSL’s tuition rates for the current school year.

In an announcement, the college said it was opening a one-day admission process for the students transferring from the closed school.

To be admitted, the students would have to pay a down payment of only P5,000. The balance would then be deferred until they have received the full tuition refund from CDSL.

Apart from offering admission from preschool to senior high school students, it also opened admissions to AB Communications, BS Information Technology, BSBA Entrepreneurship, and BS Human Resource Management students at the college level.

UST Angelicum, a private Catholic basic and higher education school run by the Dominican order, was one of the first to offer assistance to the more than 717 students from nursery to Grade 12, and 652 college students, including 172 graduating students, affected by CDSL’s closure.

In shutting down, the school cited financial reasons and low enrollment turnout over the past years during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It promised to refund the students’ tuition and other miscellaneous fees, such as for uniforms, and coordinate with the schools where the students are set to transfer.

The Department of Education (DepEd) said CDSL students would be provided a subsidy under the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education program.

DepEd said it was also looking into potential liabilities over the unusual closure of the Quezon City-based college.

Lawsuits

Closing down a school is not like shutting down a market where customers could easily go to another store offering the same products, said Jimmy Domingo, a parent from CDSL.

“The impact of the closure is more on the kids and that is what the school should have thought about. The students have built their own community there—their classmates, teachers and principal—then all of a sudden, it would disappear,” Domingo, a parent of incoming Grade 10 and Grade 5 learners, told the Inquirer.

His two kids, along with around 1,000 other students, were supposed to start their classes last Monday, but during the general assembly, CDSL announced that it would permanently cease operations due to financial instability brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said charges should be pressed against the school, saying that it was bad practice to not give any notices to the students and parents about the closure.

“There should be accountability and transparency because they should have told us earlier. Then we would have sufficient time to look for another school and we could prime and prepare our kids for the changes,” Domingo said.

According to Casimiro, criminal, administrative and civil actions would depend on any complaint to be filed by the affected parties, either through court action or through DepEd or the Commission on Higher Education, which is also looking into the possible violations of CDSL’s sudden closure.

“As far as the QC LGU is concerned, we are investigating possible violations of local ordinances as well as reviewing their compliance in securing the necessary permits in relation to their operations,” Casimiro said in a Viber message to the Inquirer.

Early signs

Gabriel Barba, an incoming sophomore student taking up a degree program in film, said speculations on the school’s closure started as early as Saturday, when their professors who happened to be their Facebook friends began posting farewell messages online.

“They were posting goodbye messages to the institution and their coworkers but we’re still not sure at that time (whether it was true). It even came to a point that we thought it was just a prank,” he said in a phone interview.

Transferring to another school would be especially harder for Barba, who has an orthopedic disability, since he previously encountered schools that rejected his enrollment because of his condition.

“Our situation is difficult for everyone but more so for me, since I am a PWD (person with disability) and I won’t be accepted right away,” he said.

CDSL, located along Congressional Avenue in Quezon City, is owned by the Balgan family. It is headed by Mary Claire Therese Balgan, who serves as president.

The Balgans also own CDSL Pampanga, which will remain open.

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