Money Moral Dilemma: Should the school have paid?

GHB

Schools are only allowed to ask for a voluntary contribution and are not allowed to stop children from any watching a play or taking part in any activity because this contribution has not been made. If the school has prevented any children from watching the play they have broken the law.

keriku

At our school (in Scotland) I actually heard parents say that they were as well not paying for stage productions as the bairns got to see them anyway! (This is from folk who could well afford it BTW!)
It is embarrassing for parents with 3 or 4 kids as sometimes you are told at very short notice.
We don't live in an affluent area and I think the school just let everyone see it.
I have known parents to storm into the school office shouting that they have no right to keep organising treats and expecting them to pay! These were very often the folk who had just returned from yet another foreign holiday......
Their attitude seems to be that EVERYTHING in education should be FREE!
Schools are under a lot of pressure to give an ever wider curriculum with an ever smaller budget!
PS I am a parent!

aangel240283

as a parent, former school govenour and PTA chair..this is a subject thats VERY close to my heart.
The costs that the school have asked for (£5) are not allowed to be demanded! they are donations only. no non private school can demand payment for anything!!!
the morality of telling these children that they were unable to go is a different matter however.
YES they should have been allowed to go, as the cost should have been covered by the PTA funds, discrimination of a child just because the parents were unable to spare the £5 should never happen.
i understand the argument about "what if it had been 40, not 4), but schools are usually pretty good at being able to get subsidised rates, help from the PTA funds, and in some cases a small budget from the school funds.
not every school is fortunate to be able to take the kids on any sort of school trip, and the way this was delt with, in my opninion was horrendous!

dorisdump

I think that the children shouldn't have been there in the first place if no-one had paid for them. It isn't fair on all the other people that HAD paid, otherwise, next time no-one will pay and expect to get it for free. It's spoiling it for everyone else.

charlotte114

My boyfriend works in a primary school. I think it's interesting that there are some parents who can't afford to make a £20 contribution for music tuition (per term and very cheap compared to paying privately), and ask for the school to help. These parents then later manage to cough up over £200 for their children to go on a fun weekend to the Isle of Wight... :mad: Surely there are some priority issues here!

If these children were from an under-privileged background then the school should allow them to watch (seeing as it is taking place anyway), but if the parents are just taking the mick then the children should not be allowed to watch. Sometimes you have to be harsh for the message to get across to the parents that they can't just take what they want from the school.

djb77

From the scenario above you can assume that:

• The school raised enough funds from the parents to hold the play

• The children in question were pupils of the school as the teachers would not have known that the parents hadn’t paid.

If this is the case then I feel that it would be unfair to exclude the children from seeing the play.

Also, if the play was a school function/activity, like most of the other people, I thought it was illegal to prevent pupils (of parent’s who have not paid) from attending school functions/activities as contribution have to be voluntary and not mandatory.

However, if the play is an extra curricular activity organised by the school then I think the school maybe allowed to refuse children who have not paid.

Carolann_2

I work for a company that supplies services to schools, and speak to a lot of teachers & bursers. Unfortunately there are always a few parents in every school who never seem to be able to 'afford' to pay for these type of events, and hope the school will not let their child miss out, and the school ends up paying for them, when in reality the parents could easily afford to pay. If this is the case with these children as hard as it seems the school has to draw a line in the sand somewhere and stop subsidising these parents. HOWEVER, if the parents of the children are known to genuinely have difficulty in finding money for things like this, rather than stigmatise the child the child should see the play like everyone else, even if the school pays. Most schools have a small pot of money for situations like this.

djlester_2

Different but similar - I help with Scouts and it turns out one family had not paid their subscriptions for 2 years. Not a poverty issue - the 2 scouts have all the latest gadgets and expensive holidays. Should the other scouts be subsidising them for the outings and activities?

Of course - if they were just not able to afford the activities then there is a fund available to cover these costs - to my knowledge we have never excluded a young person from an activity on that basis (though several times due to them being a nightmare to look after & control!!)

We do have some other scouts whos parents always plead poverty (though they have never asked for a subsidy). But then they go to private schools, and take all the school trips etc. etc. Missed some activities because they were skiing for example. Even I cannot afford to go skiing these days!! :-(

Sooler

"Parents had to pay £5 towards the cost and were also allowed to watch the show."

Is this meaning only parents who wanted to to watch the show had to pay £5?

The children who were excluded were victimised because their parents chose not to watch the show. Outrageous.

The school has already decided to hire the theatre group for a play for the children. How would any extra cost be involved?

slibs

How many parents stood and watched these 4 children being segregated through no fault of the children? ...If that was me ..I would have paid the £20 for the 4 children out of my own pocket ......what if it was 20 children ??? Then I would have asked all the other parents for a whip round ....I have accompanied children on school trips (as a helper parent ) and seen kids who have no pocket money to spend on the gift shop...and paid it myself !! I just cant bear the look on their faces !! Am I mug ?? ...what comes around goes around so the money I give away always comes back to me somehow !! ...I dont think you should not let these children see the play on the grounds that the parents had religious or cultural objecitons ...if thats the case the parents should have written in with their objections not just ignored the letters ...