Fee waivers are "not legally justifiable"

Superintendent Jerry Weast's policy of charging students illegal curricular fees and then "granting waivers" for those that do not pay wouldn't fly in California or Montana.

From California:

Finally, a process that allows for a waiver process for an otherwise mandatory fee, charge or deposit does not render it constitutionally permissible.”

Read more: San Diego News Network: Exposing the hidden costs of a free public education

From a Montana Supreme Court decision:

...Finally the school district argues that its system of waiver of fees and charges for welfare recipients and in other cases of economic hardship satisfies the constitutional requirement, and allows it to offer a higher quality of education by offering additional courses and activities beyond the minimum required which would otherwise be financially impossible. We observe that the defense of waiver has nothing to do with the constitutional issue. Constitutional requirements are a matter of right and cannot be satisfied by their denial in the first instance and subsequent waiver of the [159 Mont. 529] effects of such denial. The waiver system may well furnish a financial answer, but clearly is not legally justifiable. This may appear to some to be an insignificant matter unworthy of serious discussion, but to a child or his parents financially unable to pay the additional fees and charges imposed by a free, public school system any waiver procedure is a degrading experience...

Granger v. Cascade County School District Supreme Court of Montana