Art & Craft Money Envelpope

benki11

Hi
Just received by my kid Envelop in witch School Principal is asking to put 30€ 50€ or 60€ for one ,two or ... Kids for Art and craft!

This primary school is state owned and if they are paid by government for they expenses why the school keep asking money for this or that almost every single week

Quote from Citizen information center

Running costs of schools

The State pays a direct capitation grant of €200 per student to each primary school. The State pays the teachers' salaries. Enhanced capitation grants are paid for children with special educational needs in special schools or who attend special classes in mainstream schools. Capitation grants are used for the day-to-day running of schools and for teaching materials and resources.
Primary schools also receive a grant for caretaking and secretarial services (called the Ancillary Services Grant Scheme) and this is €155 per student. A local contribution was formerly required but has now been abolished.
Each school gets a grant towards the cost of minor works. The grant for a school is €5,500 plus €18.50 per student and €74 per student with special educational needs.
Some schools qualify for enhanced funding under various schemes for tackling disadvantage in primary schools such as the Disadvantaged Areas Scheme, Giving Children an Even Break and Early Start.




So my question is do i have to pay that money by low or not?
Thanks

byhookorbycrook

Schools are chronically underfunded. Even the bould Eddie Hobbs couldn't make the state funds actually cover the cost of day-to-day running of a primary school in Dublin. Heating, ESB and now water,not to mind insurance are huge costs. Refuse/Recycling bins are not cheap either.

When I started teaching you could cram 70 onto a single bus, now-and rightly so-it's one seat, one child so things like buses for swimming,matches, trips for tree day etc are all extremely expensive- yet the DES don't give any funding for these.

Schools must do standardised tests regularly-again, no DES funds and considering they can work out at about €7/8 a head per child per year this too adds up.

Library books/books for shared reading/peer tutoring tend to be about €6 each, on average and of course there is a need to constantly add to/update these and allow for natural wastage.

Schools use all the money they get to the benefit of the children, it's not going on teacher night outs or on hammocks for the staffroom!We buy all our own tea/coffeee/staff biccies ourselves so that even that is not costing parents.
You should go the parents' assoc AGM and get a breakdown of costs.It's scary

hilarymcl

In our school we don't have enough money for heating let alone buying new books for school library etc,.. Teachers constantly bring in their own resources- even things like keyboards and mice for computers, ethernet cables etc come from teacher's own pockets. You can be certain that the school is asking for the smallest amount they can and is probably spending at least twice that on arts and crafts materials. Schools really are chronically underfunded.

aisher

Schools are underfunded which is why they have to fundraise and ask parents for contributions - they have also had their funding reduced by 5% even though the cost of heating oil, electricity etc. is going up - they also have to pay for water rates which in the past they did not pay. The amount you are being asked for does not seem excessive - if you dont pay - who will?? If all the parents decide not to pay you can be assured the Arts/Crafts will suffer - which is the kids. By Law you dont have to pay - but is that fair if you dont and others do - should your child be excluded from Art if the paint runs out?

Orion

It's slightly more than 200 now iirc. I was Board treasurer of my kids' school for a while. Capitation and maintenance grants are now combined but the amounts are similar. Our school asks for €50 per child - no discount for siblings.

The shortfall on funding is ludicrous. That's why schools do so much fundraising - school fairs, cake sales etc. The capitation grant doesn't cover everything - not even close. It is also paid in arrears. First capitation is paid in December and balance in May. Which means that the school has bugger all to pay the bills alone for the first 4 months. That doesn't mean that the arts and crafts money is used to pay bills - it has to be used for arts and crafts as that is what it was requested for.

@aisher: actually the arts and crafts money is perfectly legit. You can refuse to pay and the school can refuse to provide arts and crafts materials to your children. It's unlikely to happen but it could. Voluntary contributions are separate and cannot be forced in any way.

lily09

Orion wrote: »

It's slightly more than 200 now iirc. I was Board treasurer of my kids' school for a while. Capitation and maintenance grants are now combined but the amounts are similar. Our school asks for €50 per child - no discount for siblings.

The amount given to schools is even less this year as the Minor Works grant which covered things like changing carpets painting etc is not being paid any more which makes things even leaner.

Feeona

hilarymcl wrote: »

In our school we don't have enough money for heating let alone buying new books for school library etc,..

I was working in a school yesterday where they can't turn on the heating for another three weeks due to funding. The children were cold, and had to leave their scarves on, as did I. What I found ridiculous is that we're trained to recognise and adapt to children's needs, and yet we don't have the resources to turn the frigging heating on!

OP, it's pointless looking up information from the CIC. The big machine of bureacracy doesn't care that most schools don't have enough money to run, and so have to ask parents to stump up. You'll have to realise that you're not the only one affected by this short sightedness. It's your children who are losing out most at the end of the day due to large classes, lack of school resources, lack of comfortable learning environment etc.

byhookorbycrook

Parents, children and staff will spend three days bag packing over mid-term to help ends meet, do you think they really want to give up their time off?

star29

The minor works grant has been scrapped this year. Our school used this to pay our heating/electricity bills. Will be asking parents unfortunately for a voluntary contribution now to have something as basic as heating.

J.R.

star29 wrote: »

The minor works grant has been scrapped this year. Our school used this to pay our heating/electricity bills. Will be asking parents unfortunately for a voluntary contribution now to have something as basic as heating.

Government Publishes Capital Spending Programme


The government today published the Medium Term Education Capital Investment Framework.

Funding will be made available for 20 new primary and 20 new second level schools, as well as extensions and refurbishment to a further 180 existing schools. The programme is intended to provide for 100,000 permanent school places over next five years. Total enrolment in both primary and post-primary schools is expected to grow by almost 70,000 between now and 2018 - over 45,000 at primary level and 25,000 at post primary level.

The framework includes an allocation for education capital spending of just over €2.2bn over five years - an average annual allocation of just over €440m.

Provision is made for the payment of minor works grant to schools in the current school year. However, the DES has announced that it was unlikely that there will be funding available for summer works or minor works in the coming years.
INTO General Secretary Sheila Nunan said the announcement of a minor works grant for this year was welcome and would allow schools to plan for necessary maintenance in the immediate future. She expressed concern that the minor works grant and the summer works grant might not be available in the coming years. “The INTO will raise this issue directly with the DES,” said Ms Nunan.

http://www.into.ie/ROI/NewsEvents/LatestNews/Title,21002,en.php

SerialComplaint

Orion wrote: »

It's slightly more than 200 now iirc. I was Board treasurer of my kids' school for a while. Capitation and maintenance grants are now combined but the amounts are similar. Our school asks for €50 per child - no discount for siblings.

Just curious - does your school publish their annual accounts? If they are asking for contributions, I believe there is a duty to show where the existing money is being spent.

byhookorbycrook

Our school certainly does and they are presented to parents at the parents' assoc. AGM.

SerialComplaint

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Our school certainly does and they are presented to parents at the parents' assoc. AGM.

Thanks - just to clarify, is it the school accounts or the parents assoc accounts or both that are present at the PA AGM?

byhookorbycrook

Both.