Thursday, September 15, 2005

Attention! School Fees

This information is very important to anyone who falls under the Calgary Board of Education and meets the following criteria:

1. Child goes to designated school. (school in your area)
2. Child is bus eligible but does not ride the bus (must live at least 1.2 kms away)
3. Is staying for lunch.

You do NOT have to pay lunch fees. This is a policy that has been in place for at least a year. I just spoke with the luch lady in charge at my son's school because a friend of mine (Trina Marr you go girl.) informed me of this policy. The forms are not clear so don't rely on them. If you are skeptical ask someone at the school, not the teacher as they probably don't know, what could it hurt? But if I could save anyone anywhere from $220.00 to $440.00. I will have considered this my most productive post.

The current count of people helped is now two, including myself. The money saved is now $660.00. Please pass this on as I don't have a very large readership. Lets get this information out there and I will be personally writing a letter the CBE on the lack of clarity on the forms.

Just so you know Trina's friend had to fight 12 months to get her refund last year so don't give up.

11 comments:

Philosophical Karen said...

School fees? What?! What the heck is Alberta spending all that oil money on if not education? (Ralph Klein has a lot to answer for, I think.)

Alyson said...

Do you not pay school fees?

Alyson said...

There were school fees long before Ralph Klein

Philosophical Karen said...

Oh, okay, so it's not some recent fiscal conservative thing as I had (very wrongly) imagined?

Hmmm, there was oil money before Ralph Klein too... So I wonder why Calgary, which is in Alberta -- a really great "have" province -- charges school fees?

Out of curiosity, what are the school fees meant to cover?

Philosophical Karen said...

But while I'm talking about Ralph Klein, could he (or his government) not give funding to education so that the schools could eliminate school fees altogether?

Then again, Western Canadians have different political ideas than Eastern Canadians, and I don't really mean to go there. So if it's a "Western thing," maybe I should leave it at that.

But no, we don't have school fees. Sales tax, yes, but no school fees.

Alyson said...

It is pretty sad with all of this "extra" money around that there are things that we have to pay for. Yesterday on the news there was this lady that came from a poor country and their education was "free" and she was quite upset that she immagrates to this "wealthy" country and has to pay school fees.

There are a lot of people here who don't think they should have to pay school fees or health premiums. I wish I didn't have too.

I know in Ontario they have better health coverage. I guess I shouldn't say I know but different coverage none the less. There are things that aren't covered here and are there because the province decides.

The School fees are ment to cover photocopying, incidentals, feildtrips, lunch time programs etc. The thing that bugs me are the forms. They make them so confusing so you end up paying more thatn you owe. After the check is cashed its so hard to get your money back

The fees are classified under manditory (waverable), non-manditory (waverable), and non-manditory (non-waverable) with little *s beside them saying the school is not obligated to provide a service if the fees are not payed for. Hence even more confusion. Unfortunately I don't have a form infront of me otherwise I could give you more detail.

As for the oil money 6-7 years ago the bottom fell out the market and oil was $10.00/barel. It quite a volitile comodity. I was working at the time and most of our clients couldn't pay for services anymore. People lost their jobs.

Alyson said...

Ontario has oil too right?

Philosophical Karen said...

I don't think we have a lot of oil. We are big consumers of oil because of all the industry.

For a long time we didn't have to pay health insurance premiums after they were eliminated in 1989 or 1990, I think. But now they've been reinstated. As well, the government has been quietly removing things that used to be covered; most notably eye exams. But quietly, a lot of psychological services that had been covered were removed -- there was nothing in the newspapers. The only reason I know is that that was when we were getting Ben tested for giftedness. The psychologist I needed to talk to was never there because he was off lobbying the government to keep the funding.

Our sales tax is 8%, and when the GST came in, the Ontario government took the opportunity to expand the number of things we had to pay tax on.

We don't pay school fees through the government, but we get nickeled and dimed by the schools. Last year I sent Ben to school with some binder paper of his own and he said he had to give it to the teacher because she was collecting it to be used as a "pool" for all the kids. We are supposed to supply the classrooms with kleenex. We are always hearing about all the money teachers spend out of their own pocket for supplies. (The government's solution? The teachers are now allowed to take it as a tax-deduction.)

Alyson said...

I don't know if any goverment has it right.

Proud Mum said...

Most certainly not LA County, who choses to only educate SOME of it's students. The rest seem to graduate from high school not knowing how to read, speak, or construct a sentence. (don't even get me started on the math...)

But I didn't feel like we got too shafted in our education in the Yukon... except that less than 200 kids graduated the year I did and it was creepy to walk down the hall and see the grad pictures of my parents... hmmm maybe that's not ideal either.

Philosophical Karen said...

Proud_mum that reminds me of Hogwarts.