HARLINGEN -- Ryan Barton thought enrolling his daughter into pre-k at a Harlingen public school would be a breeze but turns out she's not eligible.

Ryan says, “I’m a little outraged about that because I provide tax dollars every year for the school system to provide for children and yet I’m denied because my daughter speaks English”.

Barton says administrators at Harlingen CISD denied his daughter admission into the district for what he calls foolish reasons, “She indicated that since I did not meet the qualifications due to the fact that I’m not low income and that my daughter speaks English, we would not be allowed. And at that point, there was nothing further to be said.”

We went to administrators at the Harlingen School District who granted us a phone interview and talked to us about the pre-k requirements.

Assistant Superintendent for Elementary Education, Tricia Marrow says “The Harlingen School District runs a state approved Pre-kindergarten program and what that means is that students have to meet the state criteria for eligibility."

So we asked Mrs. Marrow, what the requirements were and she told us the child needs to be 4-years-old on or before September 1st at the beginning of the school year.

Plus meet one of the following criteria:

An approved Free or Reduced Lunch Program application, accepted by the Child Nutrition Department.
Limited English proficiency
Homeless
Child of active duty member
Child whose been in CPS custody

We asked Marrow if non-Spanish speaking children like Barton’s daughter qualified.
She told us, “No if they did not meet any of the other five, but if they speak English than no, they would not meet that criteria.”

Marrow adds that because it’s a state funded program, not everybody qualifies.

Something that's not sitting well with Barton who suggests, “I should either not be paying the taxes with the school district or they should be providing me supplemental aid to send her elsewhere”.

Marrow also tells us that pre-k requirements vary from school district to school district.
           
It’s also important to note that these requirements do not apply to students wanting to enroll in grades kindergarten and up.