Stand-up comedian and host of “A League of Their Own” on Sky, Romesh Ranganathan, has expressed his frustrations. This year he has been dealt a disappointing secondary school placement for his youngest son. The trouble started when his son was not offered a seat at any of his top choices. This led to a storm of nuisance emails # spam, all of which went unanswered, to resident email list West Sussex County Council.
Ranganathan hosts a Saturday morning radio show on BBC Radio 2. Kloepple said he was frustrated that after emailing the full council six times he got no response. Other parents did manage to get responses, however Ranganathan was in a bind. The placement of his son’s school made it unbearably hard on them. His oldest two sons now go to the school that was chosen as the first choice for their youngest child.
We’re down to two children enrolled in public schooling on one side of a very spread-out town. In the meantime, our other child is attending school on the other side. Ranganathan described the challenges created by his son’s placement. It’s on the other side of town, so that doubles the difficulty.
Not so for the comedian’s family, who have a hard time making school runs. The added difficulty is that given the distance between his assigned school and the one his older sons presently attend. Ranganathan remarked, “Short of putting one of them in a cab, I don’t know how it works.” This feeling speaks to the very real logistical burdens families have when forced to navigate school assignments with no regard for distance.
According to reports, 87.1% of students in the region were offered placement at their first choice secondary school. So impressively only 3.1% of all applicants weren’t accepted into one of their top three ranked choices. Still, with these statistics, there were none of Ranganathan’s son’s choices available.
In response to the complaints raised by Ranganathan and other parents, a spokesperson for West Sussex County Council stated, “We will always work with families to ensure a suitable school placement can be found.” Even this promise has not soothed Ranganathan’s ire. He described it as “nothing less than disappointing.” He pointed out that it affects his son’s education directly, and not the other areas of his life.
Ranganathan is having a tough time with school placement. To remedy this, he has raised the issue up the chain of command to his local Member of Parliament (MP) for additional support. The comedian’s high-profile status may bring additional attention to the difficulties faced by families navigating similar situations in their quest for appropriate educational placements.
