The irate mother of a 4-year-old child enrolled in an expensive private Manhattan preschool claims in a lawsuit against the institution that her kid spent too much time learning about "shapes and colors" with younger children and not enough time honing her testing skills to get into a top elementary school.
Now, the 4-year-old's educational prospects of an Ivy League college career are ruined, alleges her mother Nicole Imprescia.
And Imprescia wants the $19,000-a-year Manhattan school with which she says she entrusted her daughter's future to pay.
Imprescia pulled her daughter Lucia out of the York Avenue Preschool just three weeks after she enrolled.
She claims in a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court that the school failed to fulfill its promise to "prepare her daughter for the ERB, an exam required for admission into nearly all the elite private elementary schools."
The school's attorney, William Wachtel, told NBC New York the school "never had a problem of this type or kind ever" in its 20 years of operation.
Imprescia claims in the lawsuit that "getting a child into the Ivy League starts in nursery school."
Contrary to the school's assurances of age-appropriate curricula, she says her 4-year-old daughter took classes on "shapes and colors" with 2- and 3-year-olds rather than engage in courses more suitable for her age group and education level.
"Plaintiff's daughter, as well as the sons and daughters of the other parents, were dumped amongst each other, notwithstanding their age difference," the lawsuit alleges.
The Manhattan mother was also furious that, despite having her daughter attend classes at York Avenue Preschool for just three weeks, the school refused to refund her $19,000 tuition.
Wachtel said the school had a strongly enforced no-refund policy, primarily because it could not replace a student with another student should one withdraw during the school year.
He also said that while his client was "disappointed," that Imprescia pulled her daughter out of the program, he said, "they certainly hope the child is doing well wherever they decided to move her."
