Registration fees

Unfortunately, school budgets are *very* tight, lay-offs and cutbacks have affected every state, and community members STILL vote against raising property taxes to cover more of the school expenses. Taxes just don't cover everything, you know? Operating expenses, maintenance, school supplies, transportation costs, heating and cooling, etc. - I guess I don't see the big deal in asking families to pay a registration fee and/or a book rental fee. Is it ideal? Of course not. Will we feel the hit when all 3 of our boys are attending public school? Definitely. But in a country where public education is underfunded and constantly under scrutiny, I don't see the big deal in some of these fees. :tomato:

 

Seriously? The whole thing, or just the part that goes to schools? Our property taxes were like $3250 last year. And that was after we petitioned to have them lower it because our property value dropped considerably and we'd had it appraised, so ha

 

Well said, Jori.

 

Some of the fees I don't mind. It's just that misc. registration fee that bugs me because I never can see it accounted for in the school budget. I get the $25 tech fee part. The kids are in a school with several laptops in every room, a Promethean screen in every room and a computer lab and teacher for it. I know technology and software isn't free and I don't mind helping pay for that. The state doesn't reimburse the district for students riding the bus that live closer than 2.5 miles so they ask the parents to help pay for that if you choose to have your kids ride (I take them back and forth instead). Most fees I do understand.

It bothered me, though, to talk to a neighbor. She has 2 boys. One in middle and one in elementary. She was going over all the fees and she was at least $500 before putting money in a lunch account or a backpack on their backs. I'm just wondering where the line is in expecting parents to help, and expecting too much.

I know that in Florida (my sister teaches there) the Florida Supreme Court ruled that all kids were in entitled to a free and equal education. That's why they cannot require fees or ask for school supplies. Parents can donate as they wish. And I also know what she spends of her own money to make her classroom run. There has to be a balance somewhere.

We live in a community, that as far as I know, has never turned down a request from the schools at the voting booth. We took a property tax increase to build new schools. We voted to increase sales tax for a new library. We fund a 501c3 fundraising arm of the public school to the tune of several million a year (that's who bought all the technology our little tech fee is trying to keep running). We have one of the highest tax rates in this area.

Reasonable fees do not bother me. Reasonable school supply lists don't bother me. Somebody has to buy that stuff and it really shouldn't fall on the teacher. It's when I can't really find out what a fee is for that bothers me, especially when it's over double the going rate of surrounding districts.

Marissa

 

We have $5-6 fees, but they are specifically to cover magazine subscriptions that each child will get.

 

I generally budget in the vicinity of $500 for expenses in the fall when school starts. With our fees running so high, plus additional costs like joining the PTO (which directly benefits the high school) and unexpected supplies which we never can anticipate as they vary according to course and teacher, this is generally what it costs when the kids head back to school in the fall. But I am certain in our district this directly correlates to our low property taxes and nonexistent state income tax. Our school budgets are stressed to the max. Yet when these issues come up for a vote, whether it be increasing property taxes or instituting a state income tax in TN, they are always met with vehement opposition. We pay one way or we pay another but you can't squeeze blood out of a turnip.

 

$130 for property tax? Really? Ours is about $3500.

I don't know if our public schools have fees or not, as my kids have not yet gone to school. I don't think we have registration fees or book rental, but I do imagine there are music and sports fees.

 

The whole thing!

 

Our taxes are about $1300 and I thought that was cheap! Yowza!! Maybe she meant $1300 not $130?

ETA: guess not! Wow, what do you get for $130 a year in property taxes? I can't imagine.

 

I wouldn't mind paying supply fees for electives such as art or equipment fees for sports, etc. But honestly, and maybe this just comes from my extreme frugality, I don't see the school systems around here being wise with the money they have to begin with. IMO they should use what they have better instead of asking for more. Interactive whiteboards in every class? Necessary for learning? New playground equipment every 10 years?

America spends more per pupil than most any other country in the world (just over $6000 per student in OK which is the low end). We spend more on public schools than we ever have, twice as much as in the '70s, ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION.

 

We live in the country, so that helps. We have a 4/2/2 stick & stone on around 5 acres. My grandparents live in town and she complained this year that their went up to around $500. Their house is very large in an exclusive neighborhood. They were going to have the assessor come out and reappraise hoping to get a better rate but I don't know if they ever did. . .

 

I agree with you here 100%. Think back to the days of the one room school house. Budget? Almost nonexistent. But the teachers used all available resources and creativity to teach. It's like everything else, we throw money at it rather than fixing the problem. But, OTOH, we do need to keep up with technology if we are going to compete with other nations in a clobal economy. They didn't have lap tops in the one room school but they also didn't need them to be "up to speed" in today's world. I still think we could get by with less though.

It's so unbelievable to me. My parents live in a small house on 1 acre in rural Northern Wisconsin (out in the boonies) and their property taxes are $3000 per year. I have never heard of such low taxes. They also have property on a river (a few acres) which is undeveloped and those property taxes are still $700 per year! Don't let this news get out or people will be flocking to OK.

 

Obviously, the money has to come from somewhere and skewing it a bit to have those using the service pay more than the retirees and those who choose not to have children makes sense to me. I'm always happy to give when a need is expressed. What I object to is deception, manipulation, or coercion to obtain funds.

FWIW, I looked up the local version of PTO/PTA and it's $5 to join and then they give you a $5 Kroger gift card so Kroger is essentially sponsoring your membership. What a brilliant idea!

 

To the first, it does make sense and I hadn't thought of it in those terms. This would appease my MIL to some degree if she knew parents were required to pay a bit more. :lol: She is always complaining about having to pay for the schools when her kids are grown. She doesn't think of in terms of educating our children as they are our future. Then again, I'd complain too as her yearly property taxes are now approaching $12,000/year on Long Island!!

To the second, that is a great concept. I wonder how they got this started? If I remember correctly, our PTA dues are $10-12 per person or $25-30 for a family. I'll find out today!

 

I live in a large suburb outside of Tulsa, OK, and our property taxes are about 2k. We also have a high sales tax (8.917) and a state income tax. We don't have fees for our schools, but are asked to buy minimal supplies (about $30 per child).

Our PTA memberhip is $4, but you have to purchase one for each school.

 

We are very close to each other; I am north of Tulsa. We moved here from Broken Arrow about 6 years ago, but we never owned there, so I can't speak as to what our taxes would have been there. And like Jamey said, we have pretty high sales tax (my usual shopping town is 8%, on food too) and a state income tax

We do have homestead exemption in OK; I just assumed everyone does, but maybe not. That exempts you from tax on $2000 of the value of your home, I think.

 

SO do all homeowners get the homestead exemption? Why not just reduce property tax rates? I think in Ohio the homestead exemption is limited to senior citizens. I had to go look up our Property taxes - 4,339 /yr but I have no idea what goes to the schools.

As a newbie to the public schools, this thread has been an eye opening and- I'm hearing cha-ching!! I didn't realize you paid to join the PTO or that the students supplied communal school supplies. ( We still haven't received our list, but that is another vent!) I don't remember that as a kid, I think whatever we brought in was for our own use only. I completely understand what Jori is saying about the budget, and I really don't mind helping out with supplies. I think it's sad society doesn't value education enough to fund it better. People that don't have kids in school that don't want to contribute to funding the schools make me crazy!! :headbang:

 

I've never heard of a homestead exemption. But exempting $2000 on the value of my home wouldn't make a huge difference in the property tax. I just figured it out, and I would save approximately $15.

 

The thing is if they increase property tax it is technically the older people with no kids that do not benefit from that tax increase at all. The way they look at it is they have no kids so why should they have to pay, which I kind of agree.

I am fine doing what I am doing. I know when school is every year so we budget accordingly.

 

But they do benefit from having well-educated children in their community. Those kids are part of the community, attending community events, working at the grocery stores, fast food restaurants, some of those kids will go to marry, have kids, and live in that community their entire lives. Better schools bring new people to a community to live, housing values increase when a school district succeeds, communities benefit when kids have activities to attend before and after school, etc. You know? Besides, the majority of those older people have grandkids somewhere that other older people's taxes are assisting in the funding of their education. Not to mention, many of those older people's children were once students who used the public education system while others (including those whose children were not in school or who did not have children) paid their taxes.

I just don't understand that argument from the older people. What community doesn't benefit from a successful public school system?

 

ITA agree with this! As a homeschooler for the last few years, I wish there we could get some of the benefit too, though, lol. Right now we're fighting so our 12 yo will be allowed to play sports at the school. School and school board are fine with it but we have to fight the OSSSAA (the board that oversees athletics in Oklahoma). We were even planning to pay for his uniforms and equipment (sports are free here).

 

I totally agree which is why it drives me insane when my MIL starts in on how she shouldn't have to pay because her kids all went to private school (hello, your choice!) and that she doesn't have any kids in school anyway. Argh! Drives me bonkers! Dpn't we all have a vested interest in raising a well-educated population? Children are our future. It does take a community to raise a child and part of that is ensuring we have well-equipped, well-educated children because someday they will be the ones in charge!! Ugh. Hot button issue for me.

 

Totally agree. I also find this discussion really interesting, because I know that in Manchester, NH (biggest city in the state) the teachers are not allowed to send out lists or require students to bring in anything. They may request it, or make wish lists, but the school district (or the teacher) must provide the supplies if there aren't enough donations. I believe this is also true in our city, as the only lists I received for my son's kindergarten were wish lists. While we sent in tissues and other things the teacher requested, we did not have to send in anything.

 

LOL, we have a ton of old people so I hear it all the time, the whole fixed income thing. If their insurance increases by $5 every 6 months they are on the phone.

I guess personally I do not mind paying the registration fee and book rental here.

 

Me either, and we've been in schools in NJ, PA and LA.

 

The boys had Dawg Days at the high school last night. So far this year, I've gotten off cheap!

We have only had to pay:

$20 -general fees (Brian)
$20 - general fees (Craig)
$20 - Honors English II (Craig)
$5 - Honors Algebra II (Brian)
$5 - Honors Algebra II (Craig)

So $70 thus far. Brian has German II this semester, which I think the fee for that is $15, and Craig has AP Government/AP Economics which the fee will also be $15, so we'll be right at $100 for the semester. Not bad. Not bad at all. We did not find out about the PTO yet plus we'll want to order a school directory which is cheap, maybe $5. I think this is the least we've spent in one semester yet.

The annoying thing is, we have to write a separate check for each fee for each child for each class. It's for 'accounting' purposes but it would seem to me there has to be a better way than writing all those checks x 2!

 

Kim, do you have to pay again for his AP tests? Ethan has had all AP classes for last two years and we don't have to pay anything extra for the school year, but at the end of the year we have to pay $20 per test. We also have to pay with separate checks. Seems so silly!

 

Yes, they take all AP tests in the spring (nationwide, I think). I think the AP tests are $86 each. I can pay for the AP tests with one check and as I recall Sean's senior year his check was $344! But we pay for those in March. On the plus side, it's much cheaper than paying for those same classes at college. He did test out of several classes when he started at UT and began his college career with 21 credits already under his belt, so it's totally worth it!

 

I live in the suburbs of Chicago and we have registration fees for public school. In our district we would have to pay every year $140 per child, plus $25 per child for milk. I have no idea what the $140 per child goes to. In addition to that the teacher's send home supply lists and we pay $6000 a year in property taxes and it keeps going up every year. For us, taking into consideration the registration fees, plus the fact that the extended day program at the program stinks and its a flat day rate when we would only need 1/2 hr per day, add catholic education classes ($200 per year per child) and we decided to send them to Catholic school because our monthly cost will be less than what we currently pay for daycare and preschool and not that much more than all of the costs to send them to public school. A school district that covers the next suburb over has layed off a bunch of teachers, cut K to half day from full day and cut all after school programs and band - this is something that is happening with more frequency in the suburbs of Chicago - its just crazy especially taking into consideration how much we pay in property taxes.


Kim

 

I think our school must cover the rest of the test costs then, unless it's different by state. I'm not complaining though! If he passes all of this years', he'll have 33 when he goes in next year. whew

 

I think that must be the case. It's a standard cost (like the ACT or SAT) and maybe the state or the school district subsidizes the cost. Your school must offer a lot more AP courses than ours does. Sean took all the AP courses he could including AP Euro History as a sophomore (which really only juniors and seniors are allowed to take the AP courses, except for one social studies type course like the AP Government/Economics B&C are taking as sophomores). That's awesome! It's so much better paying for those core type courses this way than at college. Frees them up to use those credit hours towards their major or courses of their choice. Really cool that the cost is subsidized for you too. It doesn't get much better! :good:

 

For such a small school, I guess we do have a lot of AP classes. He's had AP, Math, Science, and English since he was a Sophmore, and this year also has AP Art (which seems silly) and History. There are about 50 kids in his graduating class and I think this year some of the classes are combined because of lack of kids. Like his math class is AP Calc and Stats combined because they didn't have enough kids for either one, so the same teacher teaches both during one hr. They do a lot of that here to give more variety to the kids.

 

wow, registration fee to go to a public school is something new to me. I don't think they do that at all in California. We were very lucky as well because we didn't have to pay for any supplies as well and my daughter's kinder is from 805 to 1pm so a little longer than a normal kinder with no fees for that either. But then again the amount of taxes they charge in CA are huge compared to other states from what my best friend and i were talking about... she lives in georgia. I'm sure that has a lot to do with it.