A local school district was trying to boost their head count by enticing homeschoolers with $600.00 PER CHILD if they come on COUNT DAY! Okay, at $600 bucks per child, that is a lot of dough but we didn't go for it. We had no intentions on sending our kids to ps and we certainly were not going to allow them to USE our children in order to get $8000+ from the state. Anyway, they had quite a few takers who just wanted the money, the state found out about it and they had to pay back ALL the money they received for those students, plus they were out the $600.00 per head. They asked for the families to return the money but nobody offered to do so. Ha! Question, if your school district approached you with this offer, what would you do?
I'd turn it down, due to a combination of morals (lying/misrepresenting) and fear (that the g'ment would make me pay it back if discovered). Money is pretty tight so I'd really want to take it, though LOL I'd turn it down and then eventually end up thanking God for giving me a conscience, even if I don't always want to listen to it LOL
I just responded to this in another thread. I posted that I thought it was hysterical that the district wound up asking for the $$ back, but the more I thought about it, the more serious/angry I got. 1. I wouldn't come in, for my own ethics. 2. I would report the school district. And since I'm a freelance writer/post-it-all-over-the-net kind of person, they would get extra coverage. 3. If I were a public school parent and this went thru, I would agitate for the admins to be fired, unless they had paid the $600/kid out of their own pocket (doubtful). The reason? They misappropriated money that was supposed to be used for my kids' education. I'd like to think I would be just as passionate/angry as a homeschooling parent. I might be a little more slack, because the money wasn't directly stolen from my kid, but that is just a lack of energy, not an ackowledgement that it is acceptable.
I probably wouldn't but with this economy I could understand why some would. $600 could pay my monthly mortgage and at least my gas or electric bill. If you have mouths to feed and your back is in the corner then you do what you gotta do. Our school district couldn't afford to pay $600 a kid, heck they couldn't even afford $60 a kid. Sad thing is the district probably really needed that money but some politcal person decided they didn't because they had good test scores.
I think money is tight with everyone, but when they did that we declined because we felt as though we were pimping our kids off for $600.00.
I guess I'm the skeptical sort in this respect. We could definately use the dough, but it would create too many issues. That on top of my skepticism about it all being on the up-and-up, I'm sure we'd opt out.
ROFL! I have to admit, with the way things are around here financially at the moment, I'd have seriously looked into it!
There's no way I would do that. And I don't think the school district has the right to ask for the money back. In a sense, they "hired" that child for the day; why should the family be forced to give back the "pay"? However, I would be raising a stink with the state department, and the papers, etc.
I wouldn't take the money on moral grounds. I just don't think it's right to encourage lying. However, I could see where a person might feel somewhat justified in doing so. We pay around $4000 a year in property taxes; over half of it goes to the area schools. So, I could really understand someone looking at it as a sort of pay-back for the amount of money they pour into schools whose facilities they don't use.
Boy, $600 per kid would be a big help to us! But, I guess I would be afraid there were strings to it in the end.
I would really like to see a copy of the letter they sent to homeschoolers. How do you word a letter like that?
And the school district actually thought this would be legal? Wow. I think I might have taken it and just considered it the property tax reform we've been promised in PA.
wow I would probably take it, lol 600 bucks and its out of thier pocket which means thats 600 of MY TAX MONEY back? lol
When your school does this, I'm sending Jeannie and telling them her name is Eva. Later, I'll sneak her out, throw a wig on her, send her back in and say her name is Samantha!:lol:
Ok, is this story REALLY true? It sounds a little fishy. I mean, that school district would be committing FRAUD and I would think would be more liable than just returning the $8000 per kid. I guess I have had way too many forwards about things like this and they turn out to be false. Would love proof before I judge.
