March Madness started a day early at Douglas County School District headquarters.After the district’s board approved a pilot program Tuesday night that will help pay private-school tuition for hundreds of students, the phones started ringing off the hook Wednesday morning.By the time exhausted office staffers went home Wednesday evening, they had logged more than 400 calls from parents wanting to get in on the program.”Yesterday was crazy,” district spokeswoman Stacey Neith said.The majority of the calls came from “people who already had kids in private schools,” Neith said.Those parents’ children, though, aren’t eligible for the voucher program. Students have to attend Doug las County Schools for at least one year to participate.Weeding out those already in private school left 139 parents on the list for the tuition program, Neith said. Many of those names represent families with more than one child, she said.Read more about the Douglas County’s private school voucher program at the Denver Post.

Janet Buss, left, and Tammi Pitzen at Safe Passage’s Monte Carlo night. Photo by Photo by Linda Navarro