User fees adding to the cost of Ontario high school
August 31, 2010
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Kristin Rushowy
EDUCATION REPORTER
Most Ontario high schools are charging students “user fees” for classes like French, art, business, music or science, says a report obtained by the Star that also found boards around the province rake in more than half a billion a year through fundraising.
As well, more parents are fundraising for renovations, additions or upgrades to their children’s schools — capital needs once considered something board budgets should cover — with 15 per cent of all school councils reporting such activity, says the People for Education report to be released Tuesday morning.
Based on boards’ own audited financial statements, People for Education found they raised $592 million through “a combination of fees, fundraising, vending machines, donations from businesses and other revenue sources.”
Boards in Greater Toronto alone raised $238 million.
The increased reliance on fees and private fundraising raises the concern that it is leading to a system of “have” and “have not” schools.
Rules around fundraising and student fees are under review provincially, but as it stands now students cannot be asked to pay for something they need in any course, although that appears not to be the case in all boards.
Education ministry spokesperson Patricia MacNeil said fees cannot be charged for textbooks, course materials or registration, but boards can charge for voluntary activities such as extracurricular sports, yearbooks or field trips.
“To complete any course, if you require that material or that product or that equipment, then students absolutely cannot be charged for that,” she said.
Core French students in Toronto’s public board, however, are charged for workbooks, a situation student trustees have been fighting to change.
MacNeil said she couldn’t comment on particular situations but that “the basics have to be provided.”
“All students have the right to attend schools without the payment of fees,” she also said.
Niagara-area mom Marion Battersby wrote to her school’s superintendent after receiving a form about a “mandatory” student activity fee. The fee provided students a card that, among other things, is used for access to the school library, she said.
Parents have to “go in and directly approach them, and if there’s a financial reason, they can be waived,” said the mother of six. “But they are being presented as mandatory.”
A school with 900 students, charging each a $50 fee, would bring in $45,000 a year.
“If this fee is really needed to run the school properly, then I think the ministry is being unfair to school boards.”
Brett Sweeney, a media relations officer for the District School Board of Niagara, said no school would deny any student any service based on a fee, and will work to clear up any confusion in the future.
The People for Education report says fundraising has become the “number one activity” of parent councils. In April 2007, Peel’s public board sparked worries of a two-tier system when it allowed parents to raise money for school auditoriums, additions, or any major construction.
Parents at Belfountain Public School in Caledon, for example, have raised funds for a gazebo.
“There’s a shift in the last few years, in terms of board policy, that parents can actually fundraise for a new wing or a school or a new science lab,” said Kidder.
She’s concerned about inequity and also “that we begin to assume that public education requires this private money.”
Erin Moroz, spokesperson for Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky, said fee guidelines should be in place for the 2011 school year.
Meanwhile, the Toronto public board’s student trustees have been, for the last year and a half, pushing for schools to disclose where the money is going when students pay $50 or $60, but it can be more than $100 a year for student activity fees alone.
They are also asking that students enrolled in core French not have to also pay for workbooks, which they consider to be a basic.
Kidder called course fees “user fees.” The issue is expected to come up at the next board meeting.