School Districts Are Being Sued For Charging for Classes

Many public schools across the country are facing budget cuts and lack of funding. In an attempt to continue providing the same services they have started charging student fees for texbooks, testing and to participate in certain programs or classes.

This is causing a civil liberties group in California to sue the schools for failing to uphold the right to a free education. This lawsuit may be the first of its kind, but it certainly won't be the last. In the suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, they name 35 school districts in the state who list on their website the fees associated with courses like art, music and home ec.

According to the New York Times,

“We found that the charging of fees for required academic courses is rampant,” said Mark Rosenbaum, the A.C.L.U.’s legal director in Southern California. The suit names two anonymous plaintiffs, both students attending high schools in Orange County; their parents also declined to be identified.

 

But other parents have been speaking out about the fees. Sally Smith, who has put three children through public schools in San Diego, including a daughter who is a high school senior there, said she has watched fees for uniforms and to participate in team sports rise for years. “All these fees were really taking a bite out of our budget, and our children lost the opportunity to participate in a lot of activities because we couldn’t afford them,” Ms. Smith said.

Since the 1970s, schools have been sued for providing a different quality of education in richer areas than in poorer ones, but this time the argument is about making students pay to take classes. And this time, the argument may have teeth. Some of the examples listed in the lawsuit were $1,833 for cheerleading, $180 for water polo and $400 for the wrestling program.

On the other side, representatives for some of the school districts say that due to the number of complaints about the fees, they have looked into it and have changed their rules but neglected to change the information on their websites.

It remains to be seen if the argument will hold up in court and if other school districts across the country will also be faced to change their policies, but is this really a matter of the right to a free education? And if so, who is responsible for providing these services?

The difficult part is that it is easy to see both sides of the argument. On one side, you have the school districts that are trying very hard to continue to fund programs like art, music and sports. Without the proper funding, they are forced to either charge the students or cut the programs altogether. And the students who want to take these courses or participate in an extracurricular program want to be able to, even if their parents don't have much money. Especially in low income areas, sports and music programs provide an outlet to kids who may not have many other options, and being forced to pay or miss out will only serve to make them feel even more disenfranchised. And sadly, the people caught in the middle are the teachers who teach these courses and keenly understand how important they are to all of the students, but who are forced to collect student fees and witness the disappointment of the students who can't afford to participate.

So what do you think about this debate? Do you think that schools should be allowed to charge for certain programs that are not required to graduate? Let me know in the comment section.

By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer, along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.