A new quarter just started this week at Marian Catholic High School in Chicago, and on the first day back, 300 students were pulled out of class and lined up outside the school, then told to contact their parents and pay their outstanding tuition or they’d have to leave. The Chicago Tribune writes that “by lunchtime, about 100 students were sent home-some confused, some embarrassed and a few angry.” The school says parents owe around $450,000 in outstanding tuition payments, far higher than usual, and that they’re trying to avoid layoffs and other budget cutbacks. Will the poor economy lead to higher attendance at public schools? “If you want a good education, you have to dish it out,” one parent told the paper.
Update: There are a lot of extra details in the article, but to be fair to the school for those who don’t read it, let me add: the school says they sent home letters and made phone calls last week, tuition is about $8k a year, and the amounts owed varied from $750 to $5,000. Also:
To prevent losing more students, the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago announced last month that $1 million in emergency aid would be available for families that lost jobs this school year. It was deluged with requests within days.
“Marian Catholic High School students told: Pay tuition or go home” [Chicago Tribune]
(Photo: Google Maps)
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Down in GA, a lot of the private schools were founded in the 60s. They were for children whose parents could afford to send them and who didn’t want them in integrated schools. My opinion of south GA public and private schools, they all suck.
So, the school is owed $450,000 and they want their money? Those bastards.
I understand they want their money, but doing this to the students — WHO CANNOT PAY — was wrong, wrong, wrong times a million, period, end of fucking discussion.
@m-p{3}
“Less kids will go to private schools, which will therefore requires less teachers and leads to layoffs.”
This sentence makes it pretty clear that, if you went to a public school, you should have gone private, and vice versa.
If you just *have* to send your kid to private school because the public schools in their district suck, why didn’t the parents take that into consideration before moving to that city? Save the money on private school tuition by living somewhere where the public schools are good. Can’t afford to do either? Then they shouldn’t have had kids.
Wow. Those financial settlements on molestation lawsuits must really be hitting hard on the catholic corporation’s coffers.
Now they’re pinching every penny instead of pinching every pen…uh, pencil.
They did it wrong. You send the little finger of the child to his parent’s home, with a request for payment. Those that did not pay, do no get to go home.
But don’t drag the poor children out on the street, that’s inhuman
While I agree that education is hideously expensive, and understand that in some places its either private school or a decrepit pubic school, that has nothing to do with this article.
The parents of these kids were negligent in the extreme to allow their bills with the school to fall behind this badly and have the nerve to expect kind treatment.Ill bet the parents of these kids arent $1100 past due on their Lexus payments, and if they were i doubt they could complain about Toyota Motor Credit repoing the car.
And if the parents were not realistically able to cover the balance owed, they needed to talk to the school and pull their kids out, instead of coasting on the honest payment of others.
-Silversmok3
I work at a religious private school, and we would NEVER do this. EVER.
1. private schools are often far better at educating youth compared with public schools; the teachers are paid more so care more, the classes are smaller, more is expected from the students, discipline can be harsher, the list goes on
2. this school had every right to send the kids home until their tuition was paid up. drastic measure? not really – pay your bill, bitch!!
That’s the way to do it. It is not acceptable to put the school in financial jeopardy, and risk paying children’s educations, because you can’t pay your bills. Pay up or go to public school. Beat it deadbeat…
I WISH my private school education was $8k a year.
It was $12k a year when I started in seventh grade in 1999. By the time I graduated it was over $15,000.
It’s currently $21k for a day student, $45k for a boarder.
So here’s the deal: if you can’t afford private school, your kids don’t get to go to private school. If you live in a hellish district, and you can’t afford private school, then you need to MOVE.
Not paying your bills is not an option. it’s not up to others to support your child’s education until you find the money.
One parent said she didn’t recieve adequate notice and she didn’t think it would matter if her payment was a month late? Let me try that with my electric company and see what happens. After all, it’s their job to keep nagging me until I pay, right??
@LatherRinseRepeat:
That doesn’t work where I live. You have to provide your mortgage statement, or property tax paperwork to prove you live within the district. I’m a bit peeved because my house and my neighbor’s house are in the shitty district that pays twice the amount of everyone else around us. The people across the street go to the “good” district.
I could pretend that my daughter lives with my brother, but if for some reason it is found out that she doesn’t actually live there, I have to pay “out of district tution” at a price tag of $1200.
I still can’t reply to anyone directly, but Pecan3.141′s comment on excluding the religion factor within a private business is interesting. I’m willing to bet that their religion allows them to discriminate against gays and pregnant unmarried teachers. So yes, their religion should be factor in how they handle such situations. You can’t conveniently invoke your religious philosophy at your own convenience. It’s not unlike how the Mormons diligently worked to defeat Prop 8 then were *shocked* at the backlash.
I guess I’m not surprised a Catholic institution is continuing to ensure their increasing irrelevance.
This incident is remarkably similar to the New Mexico school that suddenly (and publicly) dragged poor kids from the hot lunch line and gave them cold cheese sandwiches. Unfortunately it seems that educators feel humiliation is an acceptable solution, when in reality they are racing to become the next Columbine.
this sounds like something you should calmly tell the kids on friday afternoon, taking them out for an assembly and telling them they’re not coming back on monday if their parents don’t pay. ya know, like a firing
The ‘Right to Work’ states, are all working together to move public schools into the private sector. It’s why they have cut those states school budgets severely in good times, they simply don’t want to pay for education out of the state funds. This is why many of those states are refusing the stimulus money for public education. States like Idaho, (Run by a completely uneducated and moronic farmer..), say that they will not be spending the money on public schools, because they do not have the money to match the dollar for dollar requirements in order to receive the Federal monies. Truth is they want public school systems to fail in those states, so they can move those students to the private sector.
Education needs should be set by the Universities and colleges by the States and not by politicians.
Republicans know that the the retiring baby boomers will outnumber all others and the main thing they’re concerned about is not having higher taxes. So they’ve done their level best to bust government. Good job so far too.
If the Catholic Church in America wasn’t hemorrhaging money and parishioners due to the pedophile priests then they could assume the expense of those children at risk in his down economy.
Why doesn’t Rome kick in an make up the difference for the poor in America after all these years of asking for money for the poor?