Private schools are going to extreme measures to make sure they get paid.
Rachel Rodda is a single mother on a low income. Now, she’s allegedly facing bankruptcy at the hands of her son’s former school.
Ms Rodda says she sent her son to Victoria’s prestigious Eltham College because she didn’t think the public schools in her area were up to scratch.
“I wasn’t happy with the government schools, I wasn’t zoned for one I would send my son to, I was trying to find the most suitable place for his education,” she told The Age. “I didn’t want my child to have a second-rate start.”
She claims the school never requested to see her financial documents — but said she was honest with them about not being able to pay the fees up front.
However, when Ms Rodda later removed her child from the school, Eltham College allegedly sought to bankrupt her, demanding she pay more than $12,500 in fees.
According to Fairfax Media, the total sum requested by the private school includes unpaid fees, as well as an added fine of $6,000 for withdrawing her child from school without sufficient notice.
Read more: Private school students have no academic edge over public school students.
While debt mediator Ben Paris told Mamamia he’s never heard of this ‘drop-out fee,’ he said he commonly deals with clients facing bankruptcy, who can’t afford their child’s school fees.
“You have people making reasonable money, and they are spending a little bit more than they earn. Then something happens, [for example] someone has to change to a lower-earning job, and they don’t want to take their kids out of their school, but they can no longer afford it,” he explained to Mamamia.
“It’s like they say: Bankruptcy happens really slowly, then all of a sudden.”
According to The Age, Eltham College has filed lawsuits against 17 families for unpaid fees.
And it isn’t alone.
Last year, Channel 7 conducted a similar investigation into NSW-based schools and found a number of private institutions legally seeking as little as $6,000 or as much as $28,000 from parents.
The Age also named Wesley College, Camberwell Grammar, Melbourne Girls Grammar and Geelong Grammar as serial offenders.
Read more: Why do parents keep choosing private schools?
Mr Paris said it’s rare the school is not willing to accommodate the families before pursuing legal action.
“It would be a weekly thing where we have a client going bankrupt, with their kids at a private school, and we’ll explain the financial situation to the school and they’ll negotiate,” he said.
However, in the Rodda’s peculiar case, Mr Paris said he can’t understand the school’s motivation.
“Given she’s a low-income, single parent, [Eltham College’s] ability to actually get any money seems…,” Mr Paris trailed off before finishing: “Unless she has significant assets — and she might, I don’t know — they might spend four grand to get nothing.”
Eltham College would not comment to Mamamia as the matter is still before the court.
Do you send your kids to a private or a public school? Why?
Related content:
Seven ways to help your kids do better at school.
Do you have a news story to share? Email us at news@mamamia.com.au
Top Comments
The fact that people are willing to pay a lot of money for a product that they can get for free should tell us a lot about the start of public education. But instead of trying to shame parent who opt for private education, what about trying to improve public education instead?
There are things you can do - enforce discipline, expel violent and troublesome students, insist on high education standards, require high quality teachers and allow the heads to do pick them rather than have some time serving dud assigned from head office etc
These things happen in a very few high schools Australia wide (think Rossmoyne and Shenton College) and people actually move into those areas so they can send their kids there - of course house prices rise as a result and it's often said you still pay fees it's just it's $150,000 upfront and come packaged with granite kitchen surfaces and hardwood floors. But it does show that the idea that it's all about resources and noting can be done is false.
Yet to see a valid reason for paying private school fees. The only reason their students get decent results is because the parents become so invested in their children doing well, due to the $ they're spending. If parents paid as much attention to their child's education at public schools, the results would be the same.
My reason is simply that a private school can and will enforce discipline. One disruptive student can stop a whole class learning and public schools have mostly decided to stop trying to discipline students. So the disruptive and the violent minority get to stay and ruin education for the rest of the kids. A private school can and will expel students like that. It's true that wealthy, well educated and more intelligent parents tend to pass these characteristics on but it's not clear how much is due to genetics, culture (reading to your kids and having books in the house), positive traits such as deferred gratification and work ethic as opposed to a better school environment. To suggest it has no impact as you do seems a bit of a stretch and based on ideology rather that some more rational basis. But if there was a good state school in my area, my kids would go there. If there wasn't, they wouldn't. After all, the best achieving kids all go to State universities although there are private ones so it's not just an automatic judgement that private and paying is better.