[sekilau]

Beside the leaky house, this is another astonishing news i heard recently

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10555536

But principal Alan McIntyre said he had just received external legal advice which proved the school was within its rights.

Schools bully parents for money

Students being sent home for the day.

Money taken directly out of a parent's account at the school without permission.

A school telling parents the voluntary donations are "compulsory options fees".

A student being denied access to a course.

[JandM]

I'm not so surprised about this. In NZ and the UK both, there are various services which are supposed to be government funded, where in actual fact, the money supplied falls short of what is needed for things to operate as the public would expect. The NZ schools' voluntary donation is an oddity built into the system - called 'voluntary', but which the schools need to make their budgets even approach balancing. If the law were changed so that families were charged a tax of the same amount for each child who is in full-time education, almost certainly there would be an outcry about that. Is it cynical to suggest that maybe the government prefers that it's the schools taking the criticism, rather than the politicians?

[m.brad.russell]

I've read about that before and it concerned me too. My wife and I visited a school back in November in a neighbourhood we are interested in moving to. We spoke to the principle, who was very nice, and asked him all sorts of questions, including what donations were expected. He indicated that much of this is down to how well the school handles it's budget. The school is decile 8, and he told us that his school asks for donations of $25/term. Very reasonable in my opinion. I'm not sure how widespread the extortion tactics feared are in reality. Maybe a current Kiwi resident can shed some light on the subject.

Brad

[gil]

The school is decile 8, and he told us that his school asks for donations of $25/term. Very reasonable in my opinion.

Brad

That is cheap! Is it a primary school? We have just paid $460 for each of our two teenagers at Macleans College (decile 10), plus the camp fee for our younger one there, which was $180 if you'd paid the "donation" and $230 if you hadn't. I think our Intermediate fee for our youngest was about $220, plus camp, about $150.

New uniforms came to about $700 for two, including shoes.

[Nienke]

:eek: , that's a lot of money Gil!

I pay 100 dollars for the year for a decile 8 primary school in Titirangi.

[gil]

:eek: , that's a lot of money Gil!

It is Nienke! They are both very good schools though.

[Georgebulldog]

We've just had our kindy newsletter asking for donations, start young don't they!

[tyhapus]

wow - so do all schools ask for 'donations' and do they usually tell you how much?
Gil - gulp!

[gil]

wow - so do all schools ask for 'donations' and do they usually tell you how much?
Gil - gulp!

Yes, tyhapus, they all ask for the donation and they always tell you how much. I think you can stagger payments. There is usually a note to the effect of "if you are having trouble paying this, please contact us".

[peebles16]

Our son goes to a decile 6 (I think!?) school and the yearly donation is $65 and this decreases for each child in school so if you have 2 it's $105 for the year etc... We haven't got to the school camp thing yet but understand they are about $100 at time and usually once a year.

The higher the decile rating the school has the higher the donations expected from parents. Higher decile schools get less funding from Ministry of Educ due to the fact that funding allocations are based on social deprivation indicators for the area. I've never come across schools forcing parents to pay and our school certainly offers payment to be spread out from what I can remember :yes

Karenx

[Sam B]

My kids were both at a decile 9 primary near Cambridge and it was excellent, but the donations were only about $100 each for the year, maybe a bit less actually. I don't think I could pay much higher, well not all in one go, not after forking out for all the stationary at about the same time of year.

[IanW99]

As it hasn't been mentioned on this thread, school donations are considered tax deductible, so if you do pay the fee (and you pay income tax) you can claim back your tax portion of the donation from the IRD.

Ian

[peebles16]

As it hasn't been mentioned on this thread, school donations are considered tax deductible, so if you do pay the fee (and you pay income tax) you can claim back your tax portion of the donation from the IRD.

Ian

Only if you have proof and keep the receipt though :o

Karenx

[Scotty69]

Our son just started Island Bay School year 1. I have been asked for a donation $160 a year $40 a term and it is a decile 10 school.
We where also $10 for school hat (no uniform) and $24 for school starter park which included 8 school books/abc chart/folder /4 pencils and a glue stick we have been told to expect other charges throw out the year.

I don't think they are asking for a lot as I must admit this is something I was dreading as I have read so much about paying and buying everything for the schools that I was so surprised by how cheap the school supply's are.
throwout the year.
I am aware that it depends on the school and how much they are asking for.

Natasha

[IanW99]

Only if you have proof and keep the receipt though :o

Karenx

You would of course need proof, but surely if you lost it the school would be able to provide a duplicate?

Ian

[dharder]

$670 for four kids school donations (Decile 9)
$150 for stationary for four children
$100 roman sandals for an assortment of children

Children out of the house six hours a day - Priceless :)

Daniela

[sizzlingbadger]

Our kids go to a Catholic School and we pay around $330 each so $990 or around that this year (primary school) :exit

That's not including stationery packs and another fee each which is probably around $100-$150. Then the school uniforms x 3 not even going to add that up :uhoh

For us it's a huge expense and one we've debated so many times over the last year as the school is in the next town to us. But we can't justify them going to the local school with over 300 kids compared to the one they're in with 120. Even though the local school is $100 per child each year (mind you that's nearly $300 without change of uniform and extras).

I do think the uniform costs are unfair, it is a monopoly with only one chain store having some items and then others only obtainable via the school.

Will have to look in to the fees being tax deductible we were told a while back that they weren't for some reason or another.

[peebles16]

Children out of the house six hours a day - Priceless :)

Daniela

Couldn't agree more :laugh


Forgot to add that our stationary packs are $25 each and thankfully we can get our uniforms from Postie Plus so not too expensive - unless your kids grow as quickly as mine do :o
Karenx

[IanW99]

...
Will have to look in to the fees being tax deductible we were told a while back that they weren't for some reason or another.

See Donations, childcare and housekeeper tax credits (http://www.ird.govt.nz/income-tax-individual/end-year/dch-rebates/) for details of when you can / can't claim.

Note: It isn't tax deductible, you have to claim it back.

Ian

[Nienke]

Thanks Ian! Will now try and dig out the receipt from somewhere...

[wilson182]

I do think the uniform costs are unfair, it is a monopoly with only one chain store having some items and then others only obtainable via the school.




I agree 100% with that (although we can get our uniforms from Postie Plus - so quite cheap in comparison). My cousin was going to put her kids into school in Darfield and the uniform costs were plain ridiculous in my opinion. I thought the whole point of a school uniform was to get rid of the rich kid/poor kid syndrome....

[Tia Maria]

$670 for four kids school donations (Decile 9)
$150 for stationary for four children
$100 roman sandals for an assortment of children

Children out of the house six hours a day - Priceless :)

Daniela

Lol! :)

Cheers

Tia

[veronica]

with the school uniform costs see if there is a part of the parent teacher assoc. that organises 2nd hand uniforms. if not see if its possible to set up a 2nd hand uniform 'shop' yourselves. these uniforms don't evaporate once the kids grow out of them.
Personally I think its not a bad thing to pay for the kids stationery at school. I did when we lived in OZ and we had to buy the text books too. these were looked after as they had to be sold on at the end of the year. When I got back to the UK I was horrified to see kids chucking text books across the desks to pass them out. there was no sense of value in the treatment of the books because they were 'free'. Same applies to free education, parents who have to pay something for a childs education generally take more interest in their investment than those who don't.

[Familyofmonkeys]

We pay about $40 per term (decile 10) and you get a discount for second and third child, after which donation is capped. Stationary is about $45 at start of year, plus we spend something like an extra $20 during the last 6 months for extra writing books, spelling books etc. Found that activity fees were quite expensive....about $15 per tennis lesson. Managed to get second hand school uniform for under $100....would have cost double that if we bought new from the school.

[incredible hulse]

After having a second application for ORRS turned down we are now in the situation where we may have to pay part of the salary of a teacher aide that my our son has. This is in addition to the donations and will probably be between 60-100 a week. This appears to be quite a common expectation of the schools we have spoken to.

[Bergita]

We pay $250 a year for a decile 10 school. The stationery pack was about $40, and the uniform is unbelievably expensive! About $70 for a summer dress, then there's the hat, the shoes and in winter an entirely different uniform.

On the other hand... in South Africa, I would have been paying R1000 a month, easily, which equates to roughly $200. And the standards in the schools there are much lower, children start later and learn less. So even though I see everyone else's point of view, I personally feel very lucky.

[walshy]

the 20 free ece hours for kindergarten anrent exactly free either, more like 5% off

[peebles16]

the 20 free ece hours for kindergarten anrent exactly free either, more like 5% off

I think it depends on the provider :o When my wee one was at kindy it was totally free although only 17.5 hours a week. He's now at pre-school and in theory can be there every day 8-4.30 for the very low additional sum of $88 per week. He's not of course cos I only work 25 hours but it's handy for longer meetings etc. Now given what I used to pay for childcare in the UK for him, about £200 per week, for less hours I think the system here is fab :yes

Karenx

[richard]

We paid $633 in school fees for our two kids last tax year then got a $175 tax refund on the tax deductible items.

That didn't include the stationery pack as we found it cheaper to take the list to Warehouse Stationery and get the bits ourselves.

[walshy]

I think it depends on the provider :o When my wee one was at kindy it was totally free although only 17.5 hours a week. He's now at pre-school and in theory can be there every day 8-4.30 for the very low additional sum of $88 per week. He's not of course cos I only work 25 hours but it's handy for longer meetings etc. Now given what I used to pay for childcare in the UK for him, about £200 per week, for less hours I think the system here is fab :yes

Karenx

well full time for lily at 2 was $175, now with '20 hours free' is $145!! something not right there:wah