School Fee Schedules 2026-2027

Statement Watch

Thank you very much, Chair. Good evening. School fee schedules are an annual process. Next slide, please. Where under Section 82 of the School Act, the board must publish a schedule of the fees to be charged and deposits required and must make the schedule available to students and children under the Section 13 and to the parents of those students and children before the beginning of the school year. So I want to provide a little bit of background. Maybe if we can move to the next slide, please. Thank you. Or not. There we go. So I just read this section to you. We'll advance one more slide. So within Section 82 of the School Act, it talks about defines that students for school aged and resident in BC and enrolled in educational program in a school, they'll be provided free of charge the following instruction in an educational program sufficient to meet the general graduation requirements. and educational resource materials necessary for the participation in an educational program. So it's important here that the information represented or educational materials is information represented or stored in a variety of media and formats that is used for instruction in an educational program. Materials and equipment necessary to meet the learning outcomes or assessment requirements of an educational program are also provided by the board. However, there are items that are not included in educational resource materials. For example, paper, writing tools, calculators other than graphing calculators, student planners, exercise books, computers used for distributed learning, that is online learning such as BLM. computer storage media and other school supplies and equipment for a student's personal use. Other examples include appropriate personal clothing for school activities such as gym strip footwear, outerwear and personal safety equipment. Next slide, please. So instruction and educational programs defined as the communication of information or knowledge to students who are in attendance and under the supervision sufficient to meet the learning outcomes. or assessment requirements of an educational program. There are provisions in the School Act where fees can be charged for goods and services. So these are materials and equipment that are beyond which is necessary to meet the required learning outcomes or assessment. So an example would include payment of expenses or including expenses for transportation, accommodation, meals, entrance fees, and equipment rentals in respect to optional field trips. or special events that are not necessary to meet the required learning outcomes or assessment requirements of an educational program provided by the board. So in summary, what we're talking about here is that largely education is fee free to meet graduation requirements, but there are provisions within the School Act where fees can be charged for goods and services.

Next slide, please. So the area where these fees are represented, we call them supplemental school fees. So these are optional supplemental fees that can be charged for materials and goods that are surplus to what is necessary for the student to meet the expected outcomes in a course. Also, if a student is going beyond the basic requirements of a course and creating projects for personal use, then the student may bring their own materials from home or the cost of the materials for these enhanced projects may be recovered from a fee. I'll give you a very simple example. In a woodworking class, a student may decide that to meet the learning outcome of the project, pine or birch, which is a relatively inexpensive lumber material, is provided free of charge. If the student decides that they want to build the project out of mahogany, a supplemental fee could be charged for the cost of that. Next slide, please. So how do we represent this in our school fee schedules? What you see here is a snapshot of this next year's elementary school fee schedule. So a few things I'd like to highlight. because this is information that parents receive before the school year starts. Obviously, the name of the school is included. The first thing that we also include, besides the translation box, which is not shown in this image at the top, is our financial hardship. The Vancouver School District has a financial hardship procedure. It's administrative procedure 506. The language is included directly on the school fee schedule. I'll talk more about financial hardship in a minute or two. The next thing that is listed is a $35 school supply fee. If you recall, two minutes ago, I said that personal consumption of paper, writing materials and such, you can charge a fee for or because they're for personal use, the family can provide them. The school district offers an opportunity for families to participate in what we call a bulk supply order, which means that if a family decides that they want the school to provide these consumable resources that they can pay for $35 and that they will just continue for the rest of the year to have access to that. A family can choose not to participate in this and provide their own equipment, or they can also, if they say, I want to provide or participate in the school supply fee and they can't afford it, they can ask for financial hardship from the school. The next section on the elementary school fee schedule are supplementary supplemental school fees. The definition of those fees, which I've already covered in this presentation, is on the school fee schedule for parents, so they're very clear about what these are. In the table that follows is a descriptor of the anticipated supplemental school fees. It's itemized with a standard description you will see through all 89 elementary school fee schedules. The description of each item is the same, so it's consistent.

along with what is the cost and the grades that this is going to apply to. Again, these are optional enhancements that families can choose to participate in. If they want to participate and they cannot afford the cost, they can ask for financial hardship. And then the last part is a statement at the bottom of the table, which just indicates to families that there may be unanticipated other potential supplementary fees. So a classroom teacher may decide there's a particular field trip that is of interest. And if families want to purchase or if the teacher decides they want to move forward with that and the families want to participate, that there could be something that comes later in the school year or a performance that may be of opportunity to enhance the learning outcomes for the students. And again, it would be an optional fee where students can either choose to participate. If they cannot afford to participate and they want to, they can receive financial hardship. Next slide, please. This is an example, Benita Kwan's in the room, so this is her school fee schedule for next year representing Kitsilanoa Secondary School. secondary schools are larger entities than our elementary schools so their school fee schedules tend to be a bit more complicated there's more information again the basic tenants are the same there's the financial hardship at the top the school fee schedule are some of the pieces that schools are allowed to charge for so for example a planner which i mentioned earlier also known as an agenda is included there's a student activity fee these are um fees within the school act that we are permitted to charge a fee for. On the secondary schedules, the agendas and the student activity fee are all the exact same price. It's a standardized from the same supplier. You will see variation in the elementary ones because of different vendors providing information. Lastly, there are some optional fees. For example, at Kitsilano, locks, yearbook, graduation ceremony. Then we move to the supplemental fee schedule. So these would be enhancements to particular courses. One of the things that we do, because there are a wide array of courses at secondary schools, as a district, we have capped what the maximum cost of a supplemental fee would be. So if you look at ART 8 on Kitsilano's fee schedule, the cost and the descriptor is exactly the same on the other 17 secondary schools, the same with ART 910, ART 1112, and so on. So there's standardization across all of our schools around what is the maximum that an enhancement fee could be. There's also sometimes language that says the enhancement fee is dependent on the individual project that the student has pursued. Next slide, please. These are the areas, just in summary, in which supplemental fees can be charged. So supplies and equipment for personal use, graduation ceremonies, deposits and resource materials. Our mini school programs were permitted to charge a fee for that.

It is agreed upon by PACS in advance. We have one specialty academy in our district. It's the Britannia hockey program. Optional field trips, extracurricular outings, workbooks. Maybe I'll just make a comment on workbooks. Workbooks are to, if it is the sole learning resource for the class, then you would not be permitted to charge a fee. Workbooks in general in all of our schools are supplemental. to the learning resources in a school. And as such, you can charge a deposit if the student doesn't want to keep it, or student could choose to purchase it outright if they chose that they wanted to write in it. We have defined language around workbooks that's standardized on all of our school fee schedules at the secondary. We also have trades programs as well for students who are doing youth and trades training programs. We're permitted in the school life to charge a fee for that. So the last slide before I take any questions is just the financial hardship. This is the exact language in our financial hardship, and it talks about how no school aged child will be denied the opportunity to participate in these optional enhancements because of an inability to fee parents and guardians who may not be able to pay all or some of the fees are invited to speak to the child's teacher, counselor and or the school principal. And the schools will do that in confidence to ensure that dignity is maintained and that there's privacy and confidentiality looked after classroom setting and the specific administrative procedure is 506. So at this time I will take questions.