Do parent School Governors know ALL the financial info on other parents?

[sherbertizzi]

Hi
At our childs junior independent school there are quite a few governors with children at the school and in the same year as my child. I presume these parents know all the financial goings on of the school and are therefore involved in the decision making process of any scholarships/bursaries that may be applied for and by which parents? I am about to apply for a small bursary to get me through the next 6 months and I really do not want the other parents to know and to know my reasons for having to ask for it. I was hoping rather naively, that only the bursar and headmaster would be privy to that information.

Though I have been a school Governor the sort of situation you describe didn't occur my school (no bursaries). What I can say though is that individual issues are dealt with by a small, issue based commitees (finance/health & safety/safeguarding), and though they report back to the board it would be in very general terms that could not identify anyone. If the other parents are Parent Govenors, they are unlikely to be asked to become involved with anything from their own children's year group, whether staff, child or family related. It doesn't strike me as something Governors would be involved in. Perhaps a phone call to check the application process. If Governors are involved it would be petfectly reasonable of you to request it not be addressed by another parent. Good luck

There will be other governors / ex-governors that will give you a response regarding independent schools / bursaries as this wasn't my school. But I was governor of a school where parents financial situations could greater impact - i.e. being unable to put food on the table. As Straysocks mentioned there are finance / safe guarding committees that may have parent governors on, but I certainly wasn't privy to unrelated information about specific individuals if it didn't impact the work I was involved in. And confidential information from these wasn't shared at general Governor meetings (and certainly not included in the minutes).

It is certainly your right to request who this information from the head / head of governors to find out whom it it is revealed to. I'm sure/hopeful you'll get an answer that will make you more comfortable.

I would expect that only a very small number of people will know who have some form of assistance with the fees, not the full governing body. They will get an overview of the financials rather than going into such detail as to who gets what. I would doubt that they would even know who the "late payers" are

The finance committee will not have access to any names. Decisions are never personalised. You work in numbers of children. Unless a parent has had a conversation with you and you put two and two together you won't know.
Minutes never contain any confidential information because they are available on request to all parents.

In our LEA school - all I know is that there are X children in Y year that have either got or have had free school meals and so we get pupil premium for them. That's as far as it goes.

All information and decisions should be de-personalised. No names are needed for any of this and it should be anonymous.

They shouldn't be - governors should be strategic and this is very operational. Like others have said parent governors should definitely not be involved

No bursaries etc, but we only get a very broad overview. For example, we may be told that there are 3 children in Foster care, but won't be told which year, or whether they are siblings.

Even looking at data for my son's class, it was impossible for me to pick out his dot on the graph.

As others have said, governors’ roles are strategic and not operational so they are not party to any specific information about children or families. Any information must be anonymised and unidentifiable.

Ex state school clerk here - all confidential information regarding pupils is anonymised - if individual children are discussed it will be on the basis of "pupil x, pupil y" etc. My own DD went to a private school and the head made it plain at the open day before applications, that the only people who knew who was awarded a bursary was herself and the bursar. There is no reason for governors to know.

Good god no. Everything is highly anonymised and restricted.

Every data/case I as a governor get is absolutely impersonalised. As a school we also check that all data that is released to board of governors or on the website cannot identify any particular person. Requests for burseries to private schools would, like financial help for trips/uniform etc at state schools, would be discussed by board of governors without knowledge of names. The bursar/business manager/pastoral worker however would meet with individuals to discuss their financial situation, but would never widely share their names or data information that would easily identify them.