Why Funding The Child is Imperative
- on 04.30.07
- Fund The Child, General
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School slaps mom with $9,156 bill is the story from the News-Sun over the weekend. This is an outrageous story and one more reason why we need to FUND THE CHILD and not the system.
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This has been a tough year for Dana Wekesa, a 28-year-old nurse’s aide from Kenosha. While trying to balance a job, college and a rocky marriage, her mother in Zion has helped care for her children since 2000. Now, with only six weeks of school left, her two school-aged children are not allowed to attend Newport Elementary School in Wadsworth anymore because Beach Park School District officials determined they don’t live within district boundaries. They also slapped Wekesa with a bill for $9,156, because non-resident students have to pay $43 per day. Wekesa argues that her children — a kindergartner and third-grader — have residency because they sleep at her mother’s house within the district. “They stay there four to five days a week and two or three weekends out of the month,” Wekesa said. At the beginning of the school year she was separated from her husband and living with her mother. So the children were registered with her mother’s address. Since then, Wekesa has moved to Kenosha, closer to St. Catherine’s Hospital in Pleasant Prairie where she works second shift and the college where she studies nursing. A district residency officer saw the children’s step-father drop off the two children at the bus stop nearest to their grandma’s house in Zion three times during a seven-day period, according to documents Wekesa provided. The residency officer also observed the children get into the car from an apartment building in Kenosha. “I just don’t see how they could do something like that to the kids with school ending in six weeks,” Spencer said. |
How much money do schools distrit throughout our state and country spend investigating residency issues? Wouldn’t that money be better spent on actually educating the children? You and I know that it would, but we currently have a closed system that claims that they have to teach all children, but in fact they get to pick and choose based on resdency. The bureaucrats who run this closed system operate under a government mandate and fight to keep it closed.
It is time we stand up and change the mandate. It is time to FUND THE CHILD and not the system.
Funding the child? Maybe someday, in a more nearly perfect world.
But in the meantime, the folks I know don’t want our tax dollars paying to educate kids from another district, while that kid’s home district gets the tax money for that kid but has none of the expense. An out of district tuition fee is appropriate in these cases, since the kid’s home district isn’t transferring the money to the “non-home” district.
Either they live in the district which foots the bills, or they don’t. However, if the district receiving taxes for that child is willing to write a check to the district doing the educating, I’m onboard. Perhaps the parent in this case should ask the Kenosha public school where the kid resides to write that check to the Beach Park District. Consider it the grassroots version of the funds following the child.
How much money does D46 spend funding non-residents (actually, non-taxpaying / non-citizens, too)? Wouldn’t those dollars be better spent funding the honest, tax-paying residents? You and I know that it would, but we currently do not have the resources to properly investigate the problem, and as such, dollars for the resident, tax-paying students are spread even thinner.
You would be amazed at the extent of the abuse.
It is interesting how both Joe and yourself both are continuing to look at the current model for our government school monopoly. You talk about how much this costs now instead of even considering the entire point of the article. That is to fund each and every child equally. The districts would not have to worry about residency then, they would automatically get the money if the child attends their school. This solves the problem for this family and many other families like them. It saves the districts money because they no longer have to spend money for residency officers.
Great rationalization, but your post infers you condone this illegal behavior. This woman’s plight is sad; mine’s been worse at times. But that doesn’t give anyone the right to take advantage of the system.
I’m sure Westlake Academy employs an accountant or book keeper to make sure students have paid their tuition or are on a legitimate grant. Those funds, too, could fund student education, but then what’s to stop Wekesa’s children from attending and just saying they paid their way? Or maybe she could just drop them at yor home-school if it would make her life easier?
Funding the child? Maybe someday in a different world (I’m not certain FTC is anywhere near perfection). In the meantime, obey the law and don’t condone illegal behavior.
My post states the current system is broken and needs to be completely overhauled. The system is the problem here.
[...] I’m sure that we all can agree that the overwhelming majority of parents want the best education they can get for their children. Because of this some parents will lie about where they live; some change living arrangements during the school year; some have boundary changes forced upon them; and some are forced to go to the Supreme Court. The circumstances in each of these stories are different. Let’s explore each scenario and you’ll soon see why they all end up with the same conclusion. [...]
[...] I’m sure that we all can agree that the overwhelming majority of parents want the best education they can get for their children. Because of this some parents will lie about where they live; some change living arrangements during the school year; some have boundary changes forced upon them; and some are forced to go to the Supreme Court. The circumstances in each of these stories are different. Let’s explore each scenario and you’ll soon see why they all end up with the same conclusion. [...]
[...] I’m sure that we all can agree that the overwhelming majority of parents want the best education they can get for their children. Because of this some parents will lie about where they live; some change living arrangements during the school year; some have boundary changes forced upon them; and some are forced to go to the Supreme Court. The circumstances in each of these stories are different. Let’s explore each scenario and you’ll soon see why they all end up with the same conclusion. [...]