"voluntary" contributions to school events

[hatstand]

My school is frequently asking for "voluntary" contributions. I have no principled objection to this however I wondered what you all thought of the latest manner in which these have been requested. Personally I feel the following letter is out of order (to put it mildly). I do not think that parents under financial pressure (which doesn't include me) should have to deal with letters like this. The school has a VERY active and supportive Friends association and gets a huge turn out and huge amounts of help for fund-raising events. This was also for a non-voluntary event. There was never any letter specifically requesting donations. What do you think:

"Dear Parents,

So far we have only received the disappointing sum of x voluntary contributions towards y...If you have already given us a contribution please ignore this letter. Hopefully this is an oversight (I know...it doesn't make sense) and you will provide us with a contribution tomorrow (suggested sum)"

blah blah details of other events..."We may be obliged to cancel some events or ask for more voluntary contributions to cover our outgoings. "

The WORST bit is the form to fill in at the bottom:

"Apologies for the oversight, please find (gap)towards y"

with a bit to fill in your name!!!!

After handing over a cheque for £100 towards a school trip (still got another £150 to go)I have just refused to pay a voluntary contribution for swimming lessons at my childs primary school. I already pay for s.lessons at our local pool which are cheaper and run by qualified coaches. Last year my childs school swimming lessons were run by his teacher, only non swimmers were taught by a qualified coach. As my son has problems with english i mentioned that i would rather he stayed at school and joined in another classes lesson, but this apparently was not permitted, he could however watch another class have a pe lesson while reading a book!! I am waiting for a call from the head teacher today; am i being unreasonable?

I can see the OP's issue with the wording of the letter and think it would be appropriate to write and complain if you feel that strongly.

However, if you (like me) are a school governor you get to see the finances. And they are very, very tight - the money which comes from the county council for each pupil barely covers the costs of running the school, and our head and bursar are forever seeking out pots of extra money.

Trips - the cost of a coach to take 60 kids two miles down the road to the local country park and back is in the region of £200. When we suggested that years 5 and 6 walk a mile to the local comprehensive for a sports event we had parents complaining it was too far - so what can the school do ? We can't ask parents to ferry the kids back and forth because then you run into safeguarding and child protection issues. And there honestly isn't the money in the school budget to pay for the coach. Looking at the 5 year plan - we're going to be having to make redundancies in staff in a couple of years time as our pupil numbers fall. No doubt there will then be outraged parents posting here that there's no longer a TA in their child's class - but school's HAVE to balance the budget. If we save money now over a certain amount, the local authority claw it back.

So - for trips - we ask for money from parents. Those that can, pay. Those that can't - we hope they would come and talk to the school and may pay what they can, then the school fund will make up the difference so no child misses out. School fund is the pot from fundraising.

But we now face the issue of who does the fundraising - if parents don't volunteer we can't run fundraising events - teachers and TAs will help out but why should they give up their free time to raise money ?

Sometimes it's impossible....

Surely if all parents who could afford to returned the money on time, the school wouldn't have to send such letters. Our primary used to incorporate the request with the permission to go slip which meant that a slip with or without money had to be returned for every child if that child was to go on the trip. Surely it's a bit of a no brainer. I do agree though that the letter could have been better worded but the schools don't actually have a budget for these trips and someone has to pay.

I live in a rural area where the local coach companies are used to transport the children to and from secondary schools over a wide area and so are ALL busy. This means that if, as a primary school, we want to book a coach for a trip leaving before 9.30 or returning after 2.30 we have to pay £400 per coach, or £8 per seat if all taken, for shorter trips between these times the cost is £200 per coach.Each class in our school has roughly 25 children so we have to book a full size coach ( for children and adult helpers) but the costs are horrendous. ( £400 shared between 25 children is £16 each!) As a small school there is NO WAY we can afford to subsidise these trips and the very small ( but brilliant!) PTA does all it can to help but never has enough money to pay for everyone either and so supports the less well off. If the rest of the parents don't pay, we don't go.

I don't resent paying voluntary contributions at all. The children get so much out of these additional activities, and if the parents didn't contribute, the school couldn't afford to run them.

I do agree though that the letter received by OP is outrageous in its tone, and I would be very tempted to send back a sarcastic response. Our school does send out letters requesting voluntary contributions, but they always seem to be phrased quite sensitively. I haven't seen what goes out to those who don't pay though.

hatstand "or ask for more voluntary contributions to cover our outgoings."
This is illegal. A school is NOT allowed to ask the parents that do pay for extra to cover those that don't. They either have to make up the shortfall from their own budget or not go.

Dufy "he could however watch another class have a pe lesson while reading a book" This is illegal too. Schools get funding for swimming in their budget (though as budgets are very tight they usually ask parents for contributions to it). Swimming is a compulsory part of the National Curriculum. The school have to take all children, regardless of whether they pay or not.

I'm not going to debate the rights and wrongs of whether people should pay or not, but it does annoy me when schools break the law. Don't stand any nonsense if you can't afford it!

My son's former state school had the cheek to send someone to my home for the voluntary contribution after I chose to ignore the first two letters they sent. This was then followed several days later by a telephone call reminding me that I had not yet contributed. As an LEA governor at another school, I understand school financing but I was also aware that all schools had been given guidance regarding voluntary contributions in the previous term and my son school was well aware of the guidance, yet chose to ignore it. This is also the school that raised in excess of £5,000 at its summer fair. I not only refused to contribute, but wrote to Ed Balls and the County Council chief executive detailing the extent of the school communication including shaming those that had not contributed at an assembly, which I felt had amounted to harassment. What next, the baliffs. It was not a question of not being able to afford it, but in the original letter the head said that if parents had difficult in making a contribution that they could make the contribution in two payments (but it cost more) or parents should come and see her privately to explain their difficulties. Well as far as I am concern, my earnings are a matter for Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and not some local headteacher. It is the sense of entitlement, that some of these schools adopt which I find objectionable. Now I pay for everything, but you know what, at least it feels more honest.

Whenever my child has an extra curricular activity or trip that we need to pay for I always try and pay extra to cover a child that cannot pay. I have never been turned down.

ILoveChocolatePudding, another school governor here! I too refused to pay once, partly on the grounds I was struggling to afford all the constant contributions, but also partly because the letters were worded in such a way that you could only refuse to pay if you were on benefits, and then you had to go and see the head with evidence.

My daughter was named and shamed in class as having not paid up, and what's more, she came home and told me the names of the other children who hadn't paid too! They were all the poorer children and I felt so sorry that they should be singled out like this through no fault of their own.

You should have seen the fuss I made to the chair of governors! At first he spoke to the head and they came back to me and said sorry, but if they didn't do it that way people wouldn't pay. I said that the law was very clear on the matter - and you can't flout a law just because it doesn't suit you! After threatening to take it further they changed the wording of their letter (slightly) and promised that no more names would be read out.

durga, you are allowed to offer extra out of the goodness of your heart, that's fine and a lovely thing to do. However, the school cannot come to parents and say "not enough people have paid, we need £2 more". Nor can they think "well, the trip costs £8 per child but we know 5 children never pay up, so we'll charge £10". They are only allowed to charge you the exact amount it costs to take your child. Anything else puts them in breach of the law.

School budgets are really tight. We did run a couple of trips at a loss last year but that has all stopped now. It does mean that a number of activities will not run this year and this will impact depts like Geography and History. It is a nightmare for the MFL dept.

We have too many 'middle class dual-income families not paying' and that combined with the families who are in real need with children on free school meals = trip cancellations. We find it a bit confusing that parents are happy to fund Jack Wills, Hollister, Apple and paintballing but not a GCSE trip.

It does upset the teachers as the trips are really there to support the curriculum, especially at secondary level.

It is not really Altruism. My daughter is in a school with a lot of deprivation. Quite frankly the education she gets is dire enough without having to miss out on trips as well as so few kids could pay. If we can cover the cost of another child/ren we do so Dd can go.