Beverly Schools Target Kindergarten Parents Who Don’t Pay
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008
Nobody’s going to break your knees, but administrators can take parents with overdue bills to small claims court and can prohibit students from participating in other programs until they have money from everyone in the family who owes it.
It also affects siblings, so if you don’t pay for kindergarten for one child, an older brother or sister could be cut off from activities like high school sports or the jazz band. And if the bill isn’t balanced by 12th grade, a student could be banned from senior week and the graduation ceremony.
Parents of full-day kindergartners are by far the biggest scofflaws, with preschool parents coming in second, Liporto said.
Collecting fees for transportation, parking and athletics isn’t usually a problem because it’s easy to manage, Liporto said. If you don’t pay for parking, you don’t get a parking pass. If you don’t pay the sports fee, the coach can address it. But collecting tuition is the hard part.
All too often people pay the deposit, or for the first couple of months of the program, and then stop, Liporto said. The state doesn’t allow public schools to kick kids out for not paying, so there wasn’t much the district could do.
Compared to last year, there are 10 fewer kids in full-day kindergarten, but there are also five fewer kids receiving financial aid.
“When it’s really sincere and people can’t afford it, they can send out a scholarship form,” Liporto said. The district accepts applications throughout the year, as financial situations are constantly changing. Although that also means the amount of scholarship money could skyrocket, Liporto said the only choice is to wait and see what happens.
Tags: 12th grade, coach, financial aid, financial situations, grade a student, graduation ceremony, jazz band, kindergarten parents, kindergartners, overdue bills, preschool parents, scholarship money, scofflaws, siblings, small claims court, state doesn, t pay, target