Fees for everything! (band, etc)

[Anonymous]

I’m paying $210 plus spending money for lunch to send my kid to an out of town XC meet next weekend. I was very surprised by this. These costs were not mentioned at the parent meeting.

[Anonymous]

PP here — it is an overnight meet. There are a couple of these on the schedule.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go ask your PTA where their funds go. I guarantee there's a line item somewhere in there for the school to buy supplies of some sort (think paper, toner, etc.). Yes, really.

This is not a PTA thing.

This fee is for the academic music classes, NOT the after school marching band.

The "textbooks" in music classes are the sheet music.

To use and perform music, choirs, band and orchestra are required by law to pay music licensing fees, and purchase the rights to use, perform and print the sheet music.

FCPS requires music students to purchase the text books (ie sheet music) used in their academic classes, as well as pay the music licensing fees (similar to the licensing fees and software licensing paid by fcps to use, for example, digital textbooks.)

Free and reduced students have their sheet music (ie textbooks) paid for by FCPS.

Every other music student in FCPS has to pay for their sheet music (ie textbooks) and licensing to use, print and perform the music.

No other academic class is required to pay for their own textbooks, printed handouts or software/textbook licensing.

Do the engineering and robotics kids have to pay fees? I always thought all electives have fees associated with them, because they are...electives.

The fee is for their text books.

Not for things they get to make, keep and take home or eat.

But it is an elective. Choose a different one of you can't afford it.

Also do they keep their sheet music?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Art fee, $25. Chorus, $50.

It literally never crossed my mind to be upset about this. I'm happy to pay for the specialized supplies or resources these teacher need to work with my kids.

+1

This also is not new. I was in middle school and high school in the late 80s to early 90s, and even back then, my parents paid fees for courses I took.

I'm so tired of all these threads about the cost of school supplies and school fees. It is expensive to have kids. Stop complaining.

I bet they weren't paying a fortune in property taxes that go up every single year. The money goes to meals, special services, interpreters, etc.

This sounds incredibly racist and I am a conservative so I can't imagine how it sounds to someone who leans more liberal.

I grew up in this county and there have always been fees. It is nice that AP fees no longer exist. And it seems that fees are confined to electives for the most part.

The fees also seem less than what they used to be.

[Anonymous]

My kids finished high school a few years back, but we typically paid about $1000-1500 in fees each year. Sports and band, AP classes, tech fees, books, you name it. I was horrified. Property taxes, which are really high in my state just don't cover enough.

[Anonymous]

I don't mind the fees, though I wish it was required to explain what they go to:
$50 for chorus (know it's the uniform, music,
and accompanist)

$60 for theatre II (?) not required to be part of after school program

$75 for intro to STEM (?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids finished high school a few years back, but we typically paid about $1000-1500 in fees each year. Sports and band, AP classes, tech fees, books, you name it. I was horrified. Property taxes, which are really high in my state just don't cover enough.

So true- it’s $90 an AP in most other places that don’t cover these costs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gotta pay for that 24/7 security somehow. Rough to make do on a $4B budget where most of the funding goes to non-classroom items.

I do not mind paying the taxes, but I mind terribly how little of those taxes actually get spent on schools, in-school help for struggling students, and in-classroom teaching. I would be very happy to see the Gatehouse staff cut by 50%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Art fee, $25. Chorus, $50.

It literally never crossed my mind to be upset about this. I'm happy to pay for the specialized supplies or resources these teacher need to work with my kids.

+1

This also is not new. I was in middle school and high school in the late 80s to early 90s, and even back then, my parents paid fees for courses I took.

I'm so tired of all these threads about the cost of school supplies and school fees. It is expensive to have kids. Stop complaining.

Agree. They are upfront that there are fees in certain classes as it is listed in the course catalog. My kids’ STEM Design class is $60, which is very cheap compared to her out of school dance where I have paid $300 just for shoes this summer. Or my kids’ TKD helmet I had to buy for $100. We put money into things we value, and $30 for orchestra seems fine to me. I’m not thrilled to pay, but I’m not was never thrilled to drop a ton of money at Cox Farms in the fall and we do that too.Kids are expensive if you do the things they want to do.

Dance classes are not a curriculum class that fulfills required credits for graduation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Art fee, $25. Chorus, $50.

It literally never crossed my mind to be upset about this. I'm happy to pay for the specialized supplies or resources these teacher need to work with my kids.

+1

This also is not new. I was in middle school and high school in the late 80s to early 90s, and even back then, my parents paid fees for courses I took.

I'm so tired of all these threads about the cost of school supplies and school fees. It is expensive to have kids. Stop complaining.

I bet they weren't paying a fortune in property taxes that go up every single year. The money goes to meals, special services, interpreters, etc.

I promise you, people in the 1980's were complaining about taxes and how they were being spent. None of this is new, none of it. Property taxes existed, they were going up on a regular basis, and people complained about how the money was used. It is an age-old issue.

And yes, parents paid extra for certain activities at school, like band and chorus and art. You are not just paying a teacher to supervise a club after school; you are paying that teacher for the time after school every day, not just one day aweek, and for attending events on the weekends and in the evening. If you are with a program that does any type of travel, you are paying for that teacher's time while traveling and costs. You are also paying for kids who legitimately cannot afford the costs associated with the program, not the parents who are grumbling about having to pay for the costs associated with the program.

I have no problem paying the fees. I don't mind donating to tag day if kids come by my house. I choose not to participate in the extra car washes to send kids to Hawaii to participate in a parade. Hawaii is awesome, love it there, the parade is not that big of a deal, it really isn't an honor, and there is plenty of time for kids to grow up and figure out how to travel to Hawaii for vacation. I understand why they want to go but that really is a luxury, and I don't feel like I need to help pay for that. Maybe something like the Rose Parade that is hard to be invited to participate in and represents a high level of achievement in competitions but not some of the other ones that I have seen.

These fees are not for after school activities.

These fees are for 5th period engineering class or 2nd period orchestra.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In such a well-funded district where band kids at our HS are required to go door-to-door asking for money from neighbors on Tag Day (and this is the biggest fundraiser, raising something like $20k), why is it that we still have to pay a $50 band fee?? We do not rent an instrument, already supplement with outside lessons, and purchased an overpriced home for this “great” district. Why do I constantly feel nickel and dimed? Anyone else annoyed? What fees are you paying for your kid’s public education?

$50 band fee is nothing. Go ask the Crew team how much they have to pay for Crew participation.

Crew is not a class.

This music fee is essentially FCPS requiring the music students to purchase the physical textbooks for their graded academic music class, as well as paying for the contracts (rights) to use the textbooks required for the curriculum.

Choir, orchestra and guitar pay it too.

Music and art are the ONLY classes in FCPS that require parents to pay between $50.00-$100.00 per class in order for the students to receive the academic textbooks required to take the class.

We paid $45 a semester last year for middle school home ec.

Are they buying the cookbooks?

That is basically what the music fee is for... the textbooks

It’s probably for class supplies, because they use fabric for sewing, food ingredients for cooking, etc.

But then why are there no fees for chemistry and biology? Is it true they rarely do labs any more?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go ask your PTA where their funds go. I guarantee there's a line item somewhere in there for the school to buy supplies of some sort (think paper, toner, etc.). Yes, really.

This is not a PTA thing.

This fee is for the academic music classes, NOT the after school marching band.

The "textbooks" in music classes are the sheet music.

To use and perform music, choirs, band and orchestra are required by law to pay music licensing fees, and purchase the rights to use, perform and print the sheet music.

FCPS requires music students to purchase the text books (ie sheet music) used in their academic classes, as well as pay the music licensing fees (similar to the licensing fees and software licensing paid by fcps to use, for example, digital textbooks.)

Free and reduced students have their sheet music (ie textbooks) paid for by FCPS.

Every other music student in FCPS has to pay for their sheet music (ie textbooks) and licensing to use, print and perform the music.

No other academic class is required to pay for their own textbooks, printed handouts or software/textbook licensing.

Do the engineering and robotics kids have to pay fees? I always thought all electives have fees associated with them, because they are...electives.

The fee is for their text books.

Not for things they get to make, keep and take home or eat.

You are missing the point. These are electives. And sometimes science classes have lab fees. Unless you are an immigrant or went to some schmancy private school, surely you encountered these when you were a teen, too. I definitely recall having to pay a lab fee in high school chemistry and biology, and a supplies fee in art. I never took music classes but I imagine they had fees as well. THIS. IS. NOT. NEW. NOR. IS. IT. UNIQUE. TO. FCPS.

[Anonymous]

I bet they weren't paying a fortune in property taxes that go up every single year.

All fees aside, even if they were paying what they perceived as a fortune, their kids were getting an education far superior to the one offered today by FCPS.