KIPP parents feel duped over fees
Charter school violated state code in collecting optional payments
Mary Courtney was one of KIPP Houston’s biggest advocates, even as she had to borrow money from relatives to keep up with payments to the charter school.
She drove to Austin during School Choice Week, talking to lawmakers about why they should better fund charter schools. She volunteered on campus. She paid thousands of dollars in fees so her boys and other students could have access to books and science materials.
But that was before she realized the fees she was paying were optional, something never mentioned by teachers or principals or on the fee agreement forms that the schools — KIPP Liberation College Prep and KIPP PEACE Elementary — tied to student registration. Now, Courtney and several other KIPP Houston parents are furious because they believe they were duped by the charter nonprofit system into paying for what they believe should be a free public education.
“At no time if I thought the fees were optional would I have paid for them, especially when I’m struggling to put food on the table or clothes on my children’s backs,” Courtney said. “It’s a lot to ask of a single parent, and it’s wrong for them to allo-
cate fees from parents, especially knowing the demographic area where a majority of their school campuses are.”
A Texas Education Agency investigation last year, a copy of which was obtained by the Houston Chronicle, found KIPP Houston schools violated the Texas Education Code by collecting millions of dollars a year in impermissible student fees. Its mostly low-income and minority families paid hundreds of dollars per student each year for things such as reading materials, classroom supplies and parent associations.
TEA investigators in January appointed a monitor to keep watch on the school system’s operations but did not sanction the operator.
Parents want refunds
KIPP Houston leaders say they’re glad that parents brought issues regarding fees to the their and the TEA’s attention.
Eric Kot, chief of operations and information technology services with KIPP Houston, said some — but not all — of KIPP’s 28 local campuses incorrectly told parents that the fees were mandatory or failed to explain they were optional. Since then, KIPP’s Houston-area schools have created uniform forms that show the fees are optional and have worked with the TEA to ensure they are complying with state rules regarding student fees.
“A handful of schools got it wrong ... and contradicted what was in the (KIPP schools’) handbook, while other schools got it right and made sure parents knew it was voluntary,” Kot said. “That’s on us. The (fee) letters stated they were mandatory, and that probably confused some parents because in previous years it wasn’t.”
Asked if KIPP Houston would refund parents upset over paying what they thought were mandatory fees, Kot said such payments were “not on the table” at the district’s executive level.
KIPP is among the most respected charter school operators in the country, and school choice leaders often point to the schools’ success in helping low-income and minority students achieve at higher rates than their peer schools. KIPP schools were started by Mike Feinberg in Houston in the 1990s before the programs spread nationwide.
Other TEA investigations
In Houston, the nonprofit charter school system collected about $2.3 million in student fees during the 2015-2016 school year, Kot said, which averages out to about $168 per student.
While charter and public schools are allowed to charge optional fees for things such as athletics, clubs, extracurricular activities and uniforms, the Texas Education Code prevents them from charging students or families for use of lockers or for any instructional materials, laboratory supplies or library materials.
Over the past five years, only four charter schools or companies have been investigated for charging unallowable student fees, according to the TEA. In addition to KIPP Houston, they are the Fort Worth Academy of Fine Arts, Basis San Antonio and the Houston Gateway Academy.
TEA spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson said that while the agency reviews what’s legal and what is not when it offers training to charter schools before they first open, the agency has not sent out guidance on fees in recent years.
Mary Dawson, who has a 10-year-old son in the fifth grade at KIPP Liberation College Prep, said she was still upset after the fees dropped from $325 per student annually to about $170. She had hoped the fees would pay for things that many of KIPP’s low-income students may lack at home, such as a laptop loaner program similar to Houston ISD’s.
But when she realized the schools received sizable donations from local donors and an annual gala, and through state and federal grants, Dawson questioned why parents were still being asked to pay.
“Why are you charging fees in the first place? If you’re KIPP, you’re serving a predominately lower social-economic community — a majority of students are at-risk. Why would you charge these parents a fee when the majority of these parents have three kids or more?” Dawson said.
Helping families
Kot said teaching underserved students is KIPP’s mission, and that schools have worked with parents to make fees less burdensome — waiving them for some families and allowing others to use a payment plan. He said the fees help defray the costs of trips to college campuses, end-of-year field trips, tutoring and other enrichment opportunities.
“From our standpoint, no matter what the fees are, we work with every single family parent if they have a hardship” and cannot easily pay fees, Kot said. “The fees are really used to support our offerings for students, not to fill a budget gap.”
Courtney said she received no such offers of assistance from KIPP Liberation College Prep or KIPP PEACE Elementary, save for the option to pay the more than $300, and eventually $170, in fees through a monthly payment plan instead of all up-front.
“I would like to know when will we be reimbursed,” Courtney said. “I believe my child should receive a free appropriate public education as I did.”