School fees

[velvetpage]

I just read a website for the Calgary Board of Education. I skipped over most of the academic stuff, because it's actually very similar to what's on my board's website in relation to standardized testing, but I was intrigued by the page about school fees: Parents may find that there are about five hundred dollars' worth of school fees if they have two kids in high school.

Now, from my perspective, I think this is a good idea. I think it's crazy that the Ontario government provides every single pencil for its kids, for example. Careful shopping and sticking to a short list would make it possible for most kids to get all their basic supplies for $30-$40. This way, teachers can order exactly what they want their classes to have, everyone pays the same amount, and there is a waiver for parents who can't afford it.

I absolutely love the idea of a lunch supervision fee. One of the reasons our boards are crunched for cash and putting caps on supervision time is the changes to lunch supervision since the Harris government. Back in the late eighties, many Ontario boards hired supervisors to watch kids eat, so that teachers would have that time free. The decision at the time was that, if they were paying the supervisors anyway, it was okay to let kids stay for lunch even if their parents were home. Then Harris came, and with him came the financial crunch, and suddenly the lunch supervisors were gone. But a whole generation of kids had grown up expected lunch supervision for their children, free of charge, and someone had to provide it. So it fell back in teachers' laps.

What do you think? Is there a place for school fees, with a family cap on them and a waiver system in place, in Ontario?

Comments

[melstra.livejournal.com]

I am still thinking about this topic, so I think I'll post something more thoughtful later, particularly in regards to the fees for materials....but first a question about lunch. How much time do kids actually GET for lunch at the various levels? What percentage actually do go home?

I know that kids at any level haven't gone home for lunch in my lifetime in any US area I'm familiar with. In fact, at the high school level, lunch period can be as short as about 20 minutes--hardly enough time to go home and come back, even if you live next door. Some schools allow juniors and seniors in high school to leave "campus" if they have good grades, particularly if they have a study hall on one side of the lunch period. I don't know what elementary schools are like here, but I suspect that, like at the HS level, lunch time is slowly being shortened in favor of more instructional time.

When I was in elementary school, it was rare for teachers to do the supervising at lunch--generally there was a cadre of a few mothers who did the recess and lunch supervisions. It could have been voluntary, but I think they were paid a small pittance, like the crossing guards.

My first thought is that if a substantial percentage actually do go home, then asking parents of the others to pay (with a waiver system in place) is probably reasonable. However, if you've got most kids there all day, it becomes as much a part of the "instructional period" as the 1/2 hours before and after school when the school is generally held responsible for coralling the kiddos on their grounds. I *think* some schools in the US have afterschool programs on their grounds, and obviously those aren't free.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

The problem is that each board, in fact each school, then has to decide whether or not their lunch supervision is essential or a frill for their particular students, or even sub-groups of students. In my school area, about half the kids live far enough away to make walking logistically nearly impossible, and those happen to include almost all of the poorest students (the buses go to and from a subsidized housing area.) But there are three students I know of in my class alone who live close enough to go home for lunch, and whose parents could arrange it around their current schedules, mostly because they're home with younger kids anyway. There are at least three more in my class of twenty-three, who have a babysitter who lives nearby, who is paid to take care of them before and after school. That's six kids out of twenty-three who we are supervising at lunch hour when other people are available who would have had that responsibility within my lifetime.

Clearly, in rural areas, neither busing nor lunch supervision is, or should be, on the table. I'm not so sure about urban areas. In particular, I think full-day junior kindergarten is ridiculous. Most four-year-olds simply can't handle that day. Our kindergarten teachers dread the last hour of the day, because it's the hardest time of the day to corral those kids and keep a lid on their behaviour.