Unpaid fees hit schools

Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of unpaid school fees owed by parents may start to hinder Dunedin school finances and educational opportunities, principals say.

Balmacewen Intermediate principal Andrew Hunter said his school recently sent a newsletter to all parents, informing them a large number of school accounts had not yet been paid, and it was putting the school’s finances under "undue pressure".

"At present, we have $46,988 of unpaid student accounts. I’m sure you’ll agree that this is an unsettling figure," the newsletter said.

Mr Hunter believed his school was not the only one in Dunedin affected by the problem.

"What I do know is that, talking to other principals, this is certainly common. It’s very typical."

He believed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of school fees could be owed by parents in Dunedin schools alone.

Mr Hunter said the $46,988 in unpaid accounts was a mixture of donations and annual fees.

While the payment of donations was optional, he said the annual fees for things such as sports subscriptions, music tuition, school camps and class trips were compulsory because they were not covered by Ministry of Education funding.

"What we’re trying to say to our parent community is that if your child takes part in something, that’s great. But we’re just asking for them to pay their way.

"We run a really lean ship here. We don’t ask for anything extra. We just want to pass that cost on to make sure that everyone can play and do what they like."

Mr Hunter said all debt affected the resources the school could provide and the level of support it could give to those who needed it most.

"You’ll also note that we do not ask parents to run a fair, fundraise or sell raffles.

"We budget carefully and effectively and obviously expect that parents will pay their accounts.

"What I hope it does show . . . is the amount of debt we carry and that we rely on your continued support to run Balmacewen as we do."

Mr Hunter hoped the amount owed by parents would at least be halved by the end of this year.

"I guess for some families school bills might be a bit lower on the pecking order compared with food, electricity and telephone payments."

Otago Girls’ High School principal Linda Miller said her school was owed $49,000 in  fees, and a similar letter was sent to parents earlier this month.

She agreed it was common for such large amounts to be owed,  particularly at secondary schools.

"I’m sure it’s exacerbated at secondary school level, simply because of the range of activities that students do," Ms Miller said.

She said the debt had the potential to call into question a school’s ability to run certain programmes, particularly education outside the classroom.

"It’s an area of education that is critical to the development of our kids, who get very little opportunity to explore those sorts of environments.

"We may have to look at doing things closer to hand, rather than the trips away that we do."

Ms Miller said the reality was, schools were not funded to provide the level of education they believed was important for pupils to do as well as possible.

"So we do rely on parents to pay the cost of those activities.

"Obviously, if it’s the delivery of curriculum, we cannot chase that up from parents. But equally, we cannot provide the quality of education that we do without parents contributing to the costs."

Both Balmacewen and Otago Girls’ High School were mindful that it was financially challenging for many parents,  and the schools had different avenues they could explore to provide financial assistance.

Kaikorai Valley College principal Rick Geerlofs said his school also had a high amount of unpaid fees, but not as high as previous years.

He put the decline down to the introduction of a payment method which allowed parents to pay off the school fees in instalments.

john.lewis@odt.co.nz

 

Paying up

State schools can ask you to help with the cost of:

• School trips

• Take-home items

• Events

• Other activities not covered in the standard curriculum

• You need to agree to pay these charges.

• If you are asked for a donation or fee from a state school and you cannot pay it, contact the principal. You might be entitled to financial support.