Schools to eliminate activity fees
Parents had complained of wildly varying charges
Columbia Flyer By Jennifer Broadwater Posted 3/12/09
Howard County school officials have decided to eliminate “activity fees” charged to parents. The fees, used to pay for materials such as craft supplies, calculators, magazine subscriptions and spelling workbooks, previously varied wildly from school to school and had prompted complaints from parents. In addition to eliminating the fees, officials have drawn up school supply “menus” in order to make supply lists at different schools more consistent...
“We wanted to be sure there was some consistency, and more importantly, we wanted to be sure we weren’t asking for things the school system should be supplying,” Cousin said in October. “Free and public education is what the state says we should be supplying and that’s what we’ll do.”
continues here
~~~~~~~~~~~
How did Howard County Public Schools look at the exact same laws and the exact same letter from the Maryland Attorney General's office and come up with different conclusions from Superintendent Weast?
In Howard County -
ReplyDeleteExamples of materials of instruction that are provided by the school free of charge are:
• Calculator* (in class sets)
• Cooking utensils and food
• Sheet music
• Photography chemicals and paper
• Calculator batteries
• Science activity materials
• General art supplies
• Safety equipment
• Science equipment