37100

Do some googling to see what you actually need to pay.

I'd ask what the 'free' contribution is for before deciding. You never know, it could be for loo rolls.

Lorna at Vicenza

Oh God don't ask about Alex because I'm on the verge of tears or mass murder.
Luckily the bullying has almost stopped since he went back this year. Nothing worse than a few snide comments or little dig so far. I don't know whether it's because there is no fun in picking on Alex any more or if word got about that his mother was on the war path knocking on parent's doors, going to the head and writing letters or if it's because Alex finally reached his limit just before the holidays and when fat boy smacked him across the face Alex shot his fist out and punched him in the stomach. Fat boy collapsed to the floor crying and wailing. Alex got punished, but by this point he didn't care. I do know that it has **** all to do with the teachers or the headmaster .... that little bastard didn't even have the common courtesy to reply to my racommandata.

Last night I went to get Alex's report card and I have been strongly advised to get Alex a maths tutor, an Italian tutor and a help course with a private psychologist to improve his concentration skills and cure his hyper-activity and put him on a course of "maturity" because he's too immature, lacks independent work skills and has a tendency to want to be playful sometimes in class .......... despite his condotta vote of 8, forgetting all the tests he had done last year and that they've all had a copy of those results and of course not taking any bullying into account for anything and that Alex was really struggling all by himself in that place.

Patty

Lorna - you have to pay this 'tax'every year. It infuriates me and I get really cross. My son told me that lots of parents dont pay. I was thinking of doing the same in protest but then I did a little research on the internet. Some other people who didnt pay were able to go to school but then at the end of the 5 years they wouldn't give them the diploma -so I figure I might as well pay. However I never pay until about May/June cos I simply dont have it !! when my son first started 3 years ago it was 40 euros, the next year it was 110 euros and this year its 140 euros If you consider on top of that the books and extras its not surprising so many italians have only one child.

Lorna at Vicenza

I've been having a look at this, but it keeps saying something like tax is paid only for kids over 16. And even if I am wrong about that part, it certainly doesn't look like each student should be getting a bill for 140 euro.

I rang the school secretary asking if there were invoices available for parents to see exactly what this money gets spent on. She just gave me some rambled blurb about paying a lower tax rate or getting reimbursed if we the parents fit into the "poor" bracket of low wage earners ... and that's not what I asked at all.

URP del MIUR

37100

Exactly. Most of their so called 'taxes' are actually a voluntary contribution.

While I wouldn't need to see an invoice. The school should be able to outline what the money is spent on! IMO

You can only deduct (19%) the official taxes and insurance etc from your 730. Unless its changed, 'voluntary' contributions don't qualify.

Lorna at Vicenza

I know. Bleeding secretary tried to tell me that the 140 euro includes the money for the ECDL course so I told her she was wrong as there is an extra charge of 40.50 for that.

If an average of 500 students all pay an extra of about 100 euro that's an awful lot of money that the school is getting each year. I'd like to know where it goes. Chloe hasn't done a lot in the lab.

Lorna at Vicenza

Found a great web page that explains just how little we really are supposed to be paying and it's nowhere near what we're being asked for. Just like you said 37100, including a huge chunk of money on the yearly "bill" is dead sneaky and not supposed to happen.
Contributo volontario dei genitori


And the nonsense keeps on coming.........

Today Chloe told me that there's a 'circolare' on the students' webpages about an upcoming theatre trip for first years and as class rep she has to collect the money and pay it to the school by bolletino postale or bonifico bancario. I couldn't believe this was true so I checked :

COSTO: euro 5.50
I rappresentanti di ciascuna classe si incaricheranno di raccogliere € 5.50 per ogni studente e di versare le quote sul bollettino di c.c.p. sul conto corrente n. 18472365 o bonifico bancario IBAN IT87J0760111800000018472365. Alla voce “eseguito da” scriveranno la classe e, alla voce, “Causale versamento”, il titolo dello spettacolo.
L’attestazione del bollettino di versamento con l’elenco dei nomi dovrà essere recapitata in Segreteria entro e non oltre il 20 febbraio.


Does anybody else find it ridiculous that a 14 year old has to collect money at school for the school and walk out of school with it to pay it back to the school?
When is she (and the other class reps) supposed to get to a post office or bank if they close before the kids even get home from school?
Who the hell is supposed to pay the 1.30 Euro post office charge or the higher bank charge?
Why can't they just hand an envelope of cash and a list of names to the school secretary? Would you expect a 14 year old to leave school with more than 150 euro in a backpack and fill out the right account details to pay it back to the school he/she has just walked out of?
It makes no effing sense to me.

ononno

Did anything ever make any sense about whatever? I've given up trying to make any sense of anything that is happening right now.
ciao for now,
'o nonno

Lorna at Vicenza

Just caused a ruckus outside the secretary's office when she refused to take the school trip money and I refused to leave. She was a right snooty cow who kept trying to tell me that I have to understand how things work and that they can't touch cash and that she'd read my email but didn't have time to reply to something so stupid and that a lot of students just chip in a few extra cents to cover charges.
"Why didn't anybody tell them that and why doesn't it say that on the circolare then? I asked as well as other questions. "It's totally ridiculous that you can't touch cash but 14 year olds are expected to carry it from town to town just to give it back to school." She got a colleague to get the circolare up on the computer and read the same stuff I'd read about the class rep collecting the money and having to pay it in and then she got fed up with me so ushered me into an office saying "not talking to you anymore. Explain yourself to the dirigenza".

I carried on my argument with the lady in there and it got quite heated for a bit. At one point she said "ma lei sa chi sono io Signora?" I couldn't believe it but I wasn't going to let the headmistress scare me so I just said "yes".
- Do you know I have 39 classes? I can't go around collecting money from all of them and neither can the teachers and we can't touch cash.

"So why are 14 year olds expected to do it then? And other schools quite happily take cash."
She gave me a lengthy explanation about how school books work and that by law she can't say on a circolare that the theatre is 5.50 but students have to pay 5.50 plus 5 cents to cover the postal charges because she can't then prove where all those 5 cents go blah blah and most students do it that way anyway and they count a lot on parent collaboration etc.

"Oh you have my collaboration." I said, "All 140 euros of it that I've just paid for next year when I know that school taxes and insurance come to less than 40 euro. There's nothing on your website to explain what all that money gets spent on ..... and I'm not going to go bankrupt for 1.30 euro, but that's not the point I'm trying to make."

She went into other lengthy explanations and said that because all school monies have to be on payment receipts and not cash, the only other option is to make each kid pay their own 5.50 plus the post office 1.30 and then she'd have a lot more parents on her back if each family has to pay 1.30 for every little thing. She said that she'd give me the 1.30 and pay the post office charge if that's what was bothering me.

I decided to calm down and explain again that it wasn't all about the 1.30 this time, but what about next time and the next time and the next for the rest of this year as long as my daughter is class rep. And if it's normal that the students chip in an extra 5 cents then this should have been explained to them as it's not just new stuff for me, but new to all of them as well. "It seems that the biggest problem is communication - lack of it - and I still don't agree with the fact that all of you adults can wash your hands of it all by saying you're not allowed to collect cash and you're not authorised. My daughter isn't authorised to walk about town with all that cash. She's a minor so permit me to say again that this system is flawed.

She actually agreed with me and told me that her kids go to a school in Trento and the school has a bancomat. Parents who don't want to give their kids their personal bancomat and pin number put just enough cash on a pre-paid post office one and the students use those for small school expenses and school trips. "That would work for me" ...... but a bancomat has its own expenses and the process to get it all approved and passed by the board of directors etc. is a long one.

"Look, I know the wheels of bureaucracy turn really slowly in this country and I know that things work differently. Even if I didn't know by now, it has been annoyingly pointed out to me many times over the years. I don't normally go about town looking for arguments and I have learnt to accept a lot of things that I know I can't change all by myself. You'll probably have guessed that I'm not Italian and I have to question some things that just seem insane to me. Unlike many people I don't just bitch and whinge at the school gates or over a coffee. As an adult, I'm here looking for explanations from other adults because I don't expect my daughter to argue for me and I do understand that she has to live her school life here and by the way ..... the secretary's attitude didn't help today considering that she's probably the first port of call for many parents."

Headmistress said that she understood me, didn't grow up in Italy herself and that she'd have a word with the docente who spoke about the school trip. I apologised saying that I'm not normally so impolite and sorry if I initially came across as being very rude. She apologised for the lack of explanations in school and that at the moment her hands are tied and this is their system. We shook hands.

I said I'd pay in the money this time because obviously I couldn't walk into the classroom and give each kid some money back or ask for extra and because I understood that if I didn't pay it, the school wouldn't do it and I certainly don't want the kids to miss out as they get very few extras here away from the classroom, that payment will be late if today was closing day. She said fine shook my hand again and we said goodbye.

What a bleeding farce. Just told Chloe all about it. Her reaction?
"if the preside says something to the teacher, I bet she comes to me all angry and says something like ..... ma Chloe, bastava chiedere e potevo dirti tutto sai! Non c'era bisogno di coinvolgere tua mamma e la preside."

Garbatellamike

It is utter madness and the height of irresponsibility to ask a 14 year old to walk around with that much of other people's money - I should be surprised; however,..........

There are elements of the Italian teaching profession who it seems to me will do anything to avoid the chance of being personally blamed for something. Disgraceful to push this onto the kids!

Lorna at Vicenza

That's the main point that I couldn't seem to get into anybody's skull today, no matter how much I argued the point back and forth. Mrs "do you know who I am headmistress" didn't have an answer for me when I asked what would happen if that money was stolen from Chloe's backpack?

Lorna at Vicenza

Just been on the school's website to get the circolare to get the school's sodding account number and the wording has changed from this:

COSTO: euro 5.50
I rappresentanti di ciascuna classe si incaricheranno di raccogliere € 5.50 per ogni studente e di versare le quote sul bollettino di c.c.p. sul conto corrente n. 18472365 o bonifico bancario IBAN IT87J0760111800000018472365.


to this:




COSTO: euro 5.50
I rappresentanti di ciascuna classe si incaricheranno di raccogliere le attestazioni di versamento di € 5.50 per ogni studente versate sul bollettino di c.c.p. sul conto corrente n. 18472365 o bonifico bancario IBAN IT87J0760111800000018472365.

Garbatellamike

Better methinks

37100

So........the school can't ask a minor collect the money. Surprise!!

Lorna at Vicenza

Was it something I said? Eejits the lot of them.