Aspen View Public Schools are now are riding a tight deadline to have their courses comply with the province’s new school fees law.
During their June 8 meeting at Smith School, Aspen View board members spoke about the new requirements under the enactment of the Act to Reduce School Fees, which was declared law June 5.
Bill 1 – which was tabled in March and received royal assent in legislature May 4 – ends school board charges for instructional supplies and fees for eligible students taking the bus to their designated school. It also states that any additional fees must meet several criteria, including being clearly expressed in a board’s fee schedule and being connected to a specific good or service.
School boards will also require approval from the minister of education if they wish to increase fees more than five per cent.
Aspen View superintendent Mark Francis said at the meeting he was part of a teleconference with the ministry June 5, where he received an explanation on the requirements.
He also pointed out that school divisions must submit their complete schedule of fees for the following year by June 30 after consulting with parent groups. Francis said the ministry advised it would have fee schedules approved within three weeks.
“Once we set the fees and it’s approved, we cannot reopen our fee schedule next year. So if you do not have a fee in your fee schedule, you cannot charge it,” Francis said. “The option is you’ll either pay for it out of other funds or you do not run the program next year.”
“It’s bizarre, it’s absolutely bizarre to go through with every single school, every single classroom every single program and they’re going to have it reviewed within three weeks, for every single school division in the province?” said board chair Dennis MacNeil at the meeting. “Are they going to hire an army of 100,000 workers to go through each of these reports? It’s ridiculous.”
Francis said he believed the scary part was that this was just the phase one of the new requirements.
“The minister made it clear on (June 5) this is the first set of fees that has to be eliminated. What’s eliminated next year?” he said.
Board member Candy Nikipelo said she feels bad for the local schools that are dealing with final exams, graduation, “and to top it of they have to do such severe planning for the next year.”
In a later interview, MacNeil said he thinks this is just the tip of the iceberg, adding that he believes that eventually parents will not have to pay for anything, which puts Aspen View “in danger.”
“There are things that come up in the school year that you just can’t predict. It’s going to be difficult. I just don’t see how everything is going to work in the future, especially if they decide parents aren’t paying for anything,” he said.
