Enrollment fight now over

She's in.

Cordeirdre Mitchell, the Hanover Park teenager without a school, was officially enrolled Monday as a freshman at Schaumburg High School.

Her grandmother, Tanya Washington, presented the high school's front office with paperwork from the guardianship proceedings she initiated Friday.

Last week, officials from Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 said that once Washington started the process to become her granddaughter's legal guardian, they could enroll her.

"Everybody was beautiful," Washington said of the Saxons staff. "They were so nice and apologetic and said they really wanted to get her in. I said it's OK. There's no hard feelings."

Washington said Cordeirdre has worried that if she got in, the teachers would "mess with her," something new Schaumburg Principal Tim Little assured Washington wouldn't happen.

She'll go to school today to take a placement test and learn the ropes.

The District 211 administration expressed its support Monday.

"We're very pleased that things have moved forward here," Superintendent Roger Thornton said Monday. "We enroll lots of students this time of year and we welcome this student."

A District 211 spokesman said Monday that Thornton will hold a press conference at 1:30 p.m. today with the Illinois State Board of Education regarding a resolution in its residency policy.

"We continue to review the process and are working toward trying to look at the state board of education's suggestions and how that might impact us," Thornton said.

In June, Cordeirdre moved in with Washington to get away from the crime-ridden Milwaukee neighborhood where she's lived on public assistance with her mother and three brothers.

And while Washington is grateful for the treatment by the staff at Schaumburg High School, she said she's still upset that District 211 initially ruled against allowing Cordeirdre in when the state school code seemed to indicate it should.

"How can (Thornton) not revisit the case when he knows it's not the law," said Washington. "He had to know this was wrong. I hope this opens the door for other children who would've been denied."