Free public education — myth or reality?

Like thousands of other parents in Montreal, I am sending my kids back to school this week. (Insert “Hallelujah” here.) After a summer spent shoeless and sleeping in their bathing suits, they’ve been compelled under protest to slough off the layers of sunscreen and dirt with actual soap and water, drag a brush through their hair and put on some clean clothes.

Their backpacks are full to overflowing with the requisite backto-school items. Among those items is a freshly inked cheque covering school fees.

Lest there is any misunderstanding: Our “free” public education will cost us.

A good-quality education is expensive. Of course it is. But this is a collective investment we make as a society. My issue is with the incremental downloading of costs onto parents as public schools wrestle with budgetary constraints.

In Canada, education is a provincial jurisdiction. Public schools fall under the purview of ministries of education. School funding is drawn predominantly from local and provincial taxes, with the addition of some federal funds. School fees are a different category of expenses paid by parents.

While Quebec has the highest proportion of students going to private schools in North America, the majority of pupils still attend schools in the public system.

In principle, children are guaranteed accessible and free public education from kindergarten until they finish secondary school. In reality, parents are often on the hook for hundreds of dollars in school fees per year, per child.

For many families — particularly those with more than one child in school — September can be a difficult month. For some, it can cost upwards of a thousand dollars. No small feat if you’re on a budget.

Back in June, our family received The List. If you’re a parent with school-aged kid, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Chances are it arrived home scrunched in the bottom of your child’s backpack. It’s a detailed register of everything you’ll need to purchase for the year ahead. It covers items such as classroom materials and activity fees: boxes of tissue, wet wipes, pencil crayons, markers, pencil cases, highlighters, glue sticks, rounded scissors, baggies and so forth.

Our version of The List also includes materials bought by the school and teachers, broken down by dollars and cents. Parents are expected to reimburse the cost of these items, which include agendas, pencils and erasers, Duo-Tang and plastic folders, pencil sharpeners and educational outings.

My husband and I have two kids at the elementary level. They attend different schools in two boards. Come late August, it makes for an interesting — and expensive — backto-school routine.

For our first grader, we’ll be cutting a cheque for $105. For our fifth grader, it will be $385. The cost disparity between schools and school boards is also an issue, but we’ll save that conversation for another time.

That is just the baseline. As they move into secondary school, where schools are grappling with new learning technologies, I’m told parents are being asked to consider purchasing bigger-ticket items like laptops and tablets. There are fees for entrance exams and extracurricular activities like sports and music to consider. It adds up.

I’m not blaming the schools, by the way. Given the rolling budgetary cuts to education over the years, I think they’re often doing the best they can under the circumstances. But as budgetary compressions continue at the provincial level, paying for free education has become the new normal. Trouble is, it’s a contradiction many families can’t afford.