Minister called to intervene in house for school fees row

Education Minister Anne Tolley. Photo / Supplied

Labour is calling on Education Minister Anne Tolley to step into a row over a school suggesting a woman sell her house to pay voluntary fees.

Masterton's state-integrated Rathkeale College hit the headlines today over its handling of the case of a solo mum who said she could not pay the school's $1000-a-term voluntary donation for her son's education.

The college outraged Karen Bock by telling her she should pay the $13,000 voluntary fees owing out of the future potential sale of her home.

Ms Bock said she paid about $2000 a year in compulsory fees but could not afford to pay the additional voluntary donation and was upset at the school's "aggressive" attitude.

"The school's whole approach has been one of intimidation and aggression," she told The Dominion Post.

A spokeswoman for Mrs Tolley said she would not comment publicly on the matter because she had been directly involved in it.

Labour's education spokesman Trevor Mallard said Mrs Tolley should be hauling the college over the coals.

"Rathkeale College has crossed a line and the chair of the board of trustees and the principal should be summoned to Wellington, told to apologise to the parent in a very public manner," Mr Mallard said.

The school should be used as example to other "elite" integrated schools that insisting on payment of voluntary donations is a breach of their integration agreement which places their state funding at risk, he said.

"You can't stop a school asking for donations because no matter how much the education budget increases we all want more at the margin for our kids - but we must insist that it is a request not a demand," Mr Mallard said.

Vaughan Darby, of the Association of Integrated Schools, would not comment on the Rathkeale case specifically, but said that in general terms donations were not enforceable.

"Donations are exactly that - donations," he said.

"We do not support any school which puts pressure on parents to collect money that they are legally not required to pay."

- NZPA