A paperwork mix-up has left graduates of a city high school unable to start college, and their parents say nobody at the school has been willing to help. NY1 education reporter Lindsey Christ has the story.

Nearly 2,000 freshmen have moved into their dorms and completed orientation at SUNY Buffalo State.

Classes start Monday, but not for the new students who graduated in June from Benjamin Cardozo High School in Queens. The university told them they cannot enroll because their final high school transcripts never arrived.

That left those students and their parents in a panic, scrambling to straighten it all out.

"All of the transcripts went out without the final graduation date. That date is crucial to show the college that they did, in fact, graduate from high school," said Lynette Gibbs, a parent of one of the students impacted.  

It turns out that all 800 Cardozo graduates face the same problem. But the school has been closed, and when some parents finally reached an assistant principal by email, she said they couldn't be helped until Monday­–too late for the Buffalo State students to attend their first day of class.

The Cardozo administrators did, however, admit that they were aware of the problem.

"When did they find out about the glitch? And why didn't they notify the students to make sure the transcripts were re-sent? There are tons of students out there that's trying to start their first day of college, and there is going to be problem, because there is no proof of graduation," she said.

The city's Department of Education says it was unaware of the issue until contacted by NY1. It turns out that Cardozo had outsourced transcript services to a company called Parchment.

Parents couldn't reach anyone at Parchment, and neither could NY1.

The DOE has its own system for producing transcripts, and that's what it recommends every school use. A spokesperson says the vast majority of schools do use the in-house system.

After it learned of the problem from NY1, the Education Department ordered a Cardozo assistant principal into the office Friday to provide transcripts to at least five Buffalo State parents. No one, however, reached out to other families facing the same problem.