Hi. I just finished working 5 years in a low-income alternative school as a science teacher. I applied for Teacher Loan Forgiveness and was denied, because my loan provider (Sallie-Mae) stated my school was not in the database. It is in the database. After several hours and several escalations, I was able to convince a customer service agent to co-browse with me and she was able to see that my school was indeed listed in the database.

However, for some reason during the 2009-2010 school year, my school is not listed in the database. It is listed in the database every year since 1999. 2009-2010 was my first beginning year. So, in my loan provider’s opinion, I have only completed 4 years of service. I’m very frustrated by this, because of of the reasons I stayed at that school for 5 years was to qualify for loan forgiveness. The school I am now employed through will also work toward qualifying me for loan forgiveness if I do in fact have to just wait until next year to apply again. (This is my worst case scenario and it’s not even that bad).

I am unsure why my school is not listed during the 09-10 school year. Our population did not change. We have had a rate of 100% for free and reduced lunches for the history of our school.

To complicate things, my school also dissolved on June 2 of this year and there isn’t anybody available that I can question about this. We were run by a social service agency and I can ask for a letter stating that we were in fact a low income school during that school year, but in my experience all things must be signed by a school administrative official. There are none of those left.

Another point is that I know during one year, our principal neglected to file for Title I funding. It was a major issue for our school, because we were underfunded as it was and we had to let several people go. Again, I have no idea why this was not applied for and only remember it being discussed in a staff meeting several years ago. I am going to assume that this was why we were not in the database in 2009.

My question is what can be done about this? Is there some sort of specific document that I can provide to my loan provider to prove that we were still a low-income school that year? Is contacting a lawyer worth it? I thought that perhaps the lawyer would be able to know what sort of documents would be able to sway this situation in my favor.

Thank you,
Frustrated in Iowa