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After they’re requested to pay obligatory “senior dues” for college students graduating from Philadelphia public colleges, many households merely groan and write the examine. However Michelle Brix had questions.
Brix’s little one Elias attends Philly’s Artistic and Performing Arts Excessive Faculty, often known as CAPA. This 12 months, she was requested to pay $375 in senior dues — or $390.25 counting processing charges if she paid utilizing the instructed on-line portal. The quantity shocked her. She tried to get CAPA to offer an itemized checklist of what these dues cowl and data of what the prices have been in prior years.
“Nobody might give me any solutions for one thing so simple as how a lot it prices for a T-shirt or a yearbook,” Brix mentioned. “It felt like they have been making numbers up.”
She’s not alone in her confusion. Practically each Philadelphia district highschool costs these dues. No two colleges’ charges cowl the identical objects. Some say they cost for caps and robes, although the district has budgeted funding for these. Others cowl luncheon cruises and decorations on the commencement ceremonies.
Colleges typically point out that college students who don’t pay senior dues might undergo critical penalties, together with lacking out on milestones like strolling at commencement. But there’s nearly no district oversight of those charges, which may simply run into three figures and aren’t trivial to the town’s many households which can be economically deprived. Roughly 72% of the district’s conventional public faculty college students come from low-income backgrounds, in line with information from the Pennsylvania Division of Schooling.
On common, Philadelphia colleges ask households to pay $200 for these commencement and senior bills, in line with information from an annual survey the district sends out to all highschool principals.
When Brix did lastly get a tough breakdown of the prices, she was instructed it was a lump sum price and she or he couldn’t choose out of a few of the costs. So if her little one didn’t need to attend the senior luncheon however needed a yearbook, Brix must pay the whole as if her little one needed each.
Finally, after a number of mother and father began elevating considerations, the college lowered the charges for all college students to $300 every.
“You simply really feel fully powerless to do something about it,” Brix mentioned. “It doesn’t really feel such as you heard me, it looks like I irritated you to demise and also you modified one thing.”
CAPA’s principal and senior class sponsor didn’t reply to Chalkbeat’s requests for remark.
What are senior dues charged by colleges?
Senior dues, typically known as class dues or senior charges, are decided by the principal and managed by a senior class sponsor at every faculty.
They vary from an $85 cost at William L. Sayre Excessive Faculty that covers “class hoodies, cap and robes, diploma covers” and extra, to $380 at Roxborough Excessive Faculty for a yearbook, a luncheon cruise, applications and invites, “memorabilia,” and different commencement bills.
Some colleges cost extra for elaborate commencement ceremonies at venues just like the Kimmel Middle or The Met. Others hold prices low by holding their ceremonies of their auditorium however do cost for lighting, audio-visual wants, flowers, and decorations.
This 12 months, CAPA is holding its commencement ceremony on the Miller Theater, a $25,000 venue that’s hosted performances by Katherine Hepburn, Laurence Olivier, and Sammy Davis Jr. That contract is paid for utilizing senior dues, in line with the survey.
At CAPA, 81% of households are “economically deprived” and take part in state or federal public help applications, in line with district information.
There’s additionally little oversight or transparency relating to these charges. Aside from the self-reported principal survey, the college district wouldn’t say whether or not it retains detailed data of how a lot cash is collected and spent on these charges every year.
Requested if the district has any necessities for accumulating and spending this cash, spokesperson Christina Clark pointed to a Monetary Coaching Information that principals obtain that “outlines operational insurance policies and procedures” for varsity spending. This coaching information doesn’t point out class dues, and dues data shouldn’t be included in colleges’ public finances paperwork.
The strategy of accumulating the dues varies. Some colleges enable private checks, and others require funds to undergo web sites like SchoolCashOnline that may cost extra processing charges like what Brix encountered.
In response to one other district spokesperson, college students might qualify to have these charges waived or obtain extra assist from the college — however the district didn’t clarify how this is able to work or if it’s as much as the college. Some faculty handbooks say college students can start paying off the whole the 12 months they enter highschool paying in installments yearly till they attain the whole. Others don’t embrace this wording.
And the results for not paying will be — or not less than can look like — extreme. Brix mentioned the way in which the dues have been portrayed to her and her scholar, she believed they have been obligatory or her little one wouldn’t be capable of graduate.
Clark mentioned in an electronic mail no scholar will be excluded from commencement due to their incapacity to contribute to class dues. In response to the district’s highschool commencement tips, “college students who meet all commencement necessities might take part within the commencement workout routines until for causes as decided on the faculty degree with applicable communication.”
Nevertheless, mother and father say this hasn’t been clearly communicated to them, and the general public data available typically contradicts what the district says. For instance, William W. Bodine Excessive Faculty’s web site says any Class of 2024 scholar who fails to pay their $200 received’t get their class transcripts, diploma, commencement tickets, promenade tickets, or a yearbook.
Brix mentioned it took months of analysis and repeated requests to her faculty principal to get any details about the dues.
A number of faculty handbooks Chalkbeat reviewed additionally mentioned the dues are “required” however don’t element penalties for failing to pay. Chalkbeat reached out to each principal who responded to the district’s survey, however just one replied, directing all requests again to the district’s communications workplace.
“I don’t assume any Philly faculty district child ought to really feel like they’ll’t afford to graduate from their public faculty,” Brix mentioned.
A number of handbooks and senior contracts additionally say these dues is not going to be refunded, even when a household paid however later realized that their scholar wouldn’t graduate for educational or different causes.
A letter within the 2024 handbook for Kensington Excessive Faculty for the Artistic and Performing Arts (often known as KCAPA) says, “by Faculty District coverage, participation in proms and graduation ceremonies are privileges that could be withheld by the principal per the Pupil Code of Conduct or attendance.”
Relating to conventional commencement regalia, the district and a few colleges don’t all the time appear to be on the identical web page. A district spokesperson mentioned that the district has put aside cash to pay for caps and robes for all graduates.
“No scholar must be charged for his or her cap and robe,” the spokesperson mentioned in an electronic mail.
Nevertheless, some colleges included costs for caps and robes of their dues calculation this 12 months, in line with the principals’ survey responses. Paperwork from prior years additionally reveal colleges have beforehand included costs for caps and robes of their dues.
Clark mentioned “the principals who indicated that data on the survey have been contacted to remind them of the funding that’s offered.”
Class, promenade charges swallow scholar job earnings
Jesse Abrams-Morley, an educator at KCAPA, mentioned college students and households typically categorical frustration at having to pay a lot cash simply to take part in a celebration of their tutorial success.
However actually, the primary query Abrams-Morley will get this time of 12 months is: “Do our charges cowl promenade?” At some colleges they do, however at most, together with KCAPA, they don’t. So between the ticket worth, the outfits, transportation, and different prom-related prices, households can find yourself paying a whole bunch extra for yet one more vital ceremony of passage that most individuals assume is a “fundamental operate of college,” he mentioned.
For a lot of of this 12 months’s seniors who began their highschool careers within the throes of the COVID pandemic, experiences like promenade and commencement should not simply decadent excuses to decorate up, Brix mentioned. They’re essential milestones and rewards for college students’ resilience throughout a turbulent time. They’re additionally possibilities to make their final significant in-person childhood recollections earlier than heading off to varsity or coming into the workforce.
“Simply going to your individual commencement and going to your promenade might value $485,” Abrams-Morley mentioned. “There are lots of households for whom that could be a enormous burden. … A lot of college students who work” find yourself having their job earnings eaten up by these charges.
Abrams-Morley mentioned charging these dues raises questions on inequity and transparency.
Not all colleges publicly submit their dues so it’s exhausting to know the way your faculty stacks up in opposition to their neighbors or if charges are rising yearly, he mentioned.
“That must be public data,” he mentioned.
Brix too needs extra transparency and guidelines round these charges. She mentioned she’s had one other little one move by way of the town’s public faculty system, and final 12 months her household solely needed to pay $165 in senior dues at Franklin Studying Middle.
“At this level it simply looks as if a circus, a free-for-all,” she mentioned. “It made me really feel like folks want to buy round … and ask what senior dues are once they’re contemplating the place to attend highschool, which appears completely outrageous.”
Kristal Torpey, one other CAPA dad or mum, mentioned she paid her daughter’s charges in installments as a result of she doesn’t really feel like she will pay abruptly. However the thought of her daughter not strolling at commencement pressured her into paying.
“Initially, the $390 shocked the hell outta me,” Torpey mentioned. “However I do really feel like we have been instructed early sufficient on that you would be able to save up.”
Nonetheless, and not using a breakdown of the prices, “I really feel like I’m blindly sending cash,” Torpey mentioned.
Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.
