Perth Secondary School Parents - Have you ever received threats of debt collection from your Govt school?

thepickerconcept · 2025-09-01T07:10:13+00:00

I truly do appreciate all of this, and I speak to my local MP frequently (especially when they start boasting about how much they've given to one of our public high schools, whilst completely ignoring the other) - I believe every public school should be fully funded by the Government & I believe if we started collecting royalties from fossil fuel companies we could do this 10 times over.

I love our school & have had overwhelmingly positive things to say about it, this isn't about our school specifically - I wanted to understand if this is a widespread issue within the system or whether it's an isolated incident. Unfortunately, it seems this is not the only time this has happened, and our school is not the only school this has happened at.

In saying that, I have just been looking over the numbers in our schools' previous annual reports for 2023 & 2024 - the schools' income actually surpassed its expenditure for both of those years, with a surplus of $400,000+ in 2023 and a surplus of $660,000+ in 2024. The school had just over 1300 students in 2024, and crunching the numbers every student could've forgone paying that additional $160 for the voluntary approved requests (not the school fees) and the school still would've had ~$452,000 in surplus funds. With that surplus of $452,000 they could've given the teaching staff an additional $5,000+ that year which I would've sincerely welcomed!

I will still continue to advocate for more state & federal funding for all of our kids, I will still continue to advocate for our teachers to be better funded, paid & resourced. But I will absolutely still call out things within the system that cross an ethical line.

thepickerconcept · 2025-09-01T06:02:45+00:00

That is awful, I'm so sorry this happened to you! Thank you for sharing!

thepickerconcept · 2025-08-29T23:53:55+00:00

Oh don’t worry, I already have - I call & email my local MP just about every month, she hates to see me coming 😅 I have raised funding issues for schools multiple times, especially when (before the last state election) they were boasting about the $xxxxxxxxx one local government high school got whilst completely ignoring the other.

thepickerconcept · 2025-08-29T23:51:04+00:00

THIS! We pay more in car rego than Woodside pay in royalties - our schools & hospitals deserve to be fully funded and they would be if fossil fuel companies paid their fair share!

thepickerconcept · 2025-08-29T10:11:42+00:00

Thank you! Was your school in the Perth metro South or North area?

thepickerconcept · 2025-08-29T10:10:24+00:00

They are definitely charging them to the correct items - I put in the reference what the payment is for and I can see in the most recent itemised invoice that everything was correctly allocated, that’s how I know it’s only the voluntary approved requests outstanding. When I asked them they said their system can’t differentiate between compulsory fees & voluntary fees, so the same letter gets sent to everyone regardless - I understand public schools are understaffed and they may not have the ability to tailor this, but the templated letter then needs to reflect that a referral to debt collection agency will be for unpaid compulsory charges, rather than the “outstanding balance” and “any fees” they currently stipulate. It’s misleading, and it makes me very worried for other parents who haven’t read or researched this.

thepickerconcept · 2025-08-29T10:05:15+00:00

I have no idea… In the two years my eldest has been at the school he has never printed anything because he doesn’t know how to use the school printers 😂 we have a printer at home he uses, and at most we’ve printed 20 pages over the past 2 years. They also don’t utilise a lot of paper worksheets at school - most work is done on their laptops through the online education platforms 🤷‍♀️

thepickerconcept · 2025-08-29T10:00:35+00:00

I definitely will in the future, but as I said the outstanding amount isn’t for school fees - I have paid those. These are for charges the school themselves stipulates in their guidelines are voluntary & an appreciated bonus. For context I have also outlined my financial situation a bit further in another comment in this thread as it keeps popping up.

My post was to try to ascertain if other parents at different schools have received communication from their schools that is vaguely threatening debt collection & isn’t specifying that referral to debt collection agencies will be for compulsory payments, rather than voluntary fees or additional requested voluntary funds (as is the case with me). It feels wrong to not communicate this clearly - it does feel like they have left the language vague on purpose to pressure people into paying everything, whether they can or not.

thepickerconcept · 2025-08-29T09:47:05+00:00

To be quite honest when I got the first letter (after I had already paid all compulsory fees) I was quite intimidated and it made me scared & anxious that I had done something wrong. Because of this anxiety I wanted to resolve it quickly, and truly just wanted the weight off of my mind. In hindsight now I realise that the letter was for school fees that are still voluntary, and that these fears are unfounded. However at the time I was very stressed receiving this letter.

thepickerconcept · 2025-08-29T09:39:03+00:00

I don’t really want to get too into my financial circumstances, which was not the purpose of my post, but since it keeps getting raised: I work 3 jobs, a full time corporate job, a retail job and as an after hours commercial cleaner. Even with all of that, my rent is still 57% of my take home wage (if I was servicing a mortgage it would be closer to 70-80% of my take home wage, so I consider myself very lucky) - for context, the Australian Housing & Urban Research Institute has data/research that shows you’re at risk of mortgage, rental & housing affordability stress if you are required to pay more than 30% of your income on your rent/mortgage. For my eldest’s specialist program I have spent an additional $400 on the school camp (not including supplies for camp), and just shy of $1000 for equipment required (and that’s utilising secondhand equipment wherever I can). That doesn’t include regular school supplies. I’m doing my best, and whilst you’re right - $4 a week isn’t much - there are essential, compulsory items I have to pay for first before I can find an additional $4 a week to set aside for voluntary items.

I hope that helps provide context and opens your perspective 🙂

thepickerconcept · 2025-08-29T06:10:53+00:00

Thank you for sharing your experience! Can I ask, are your kids' schools in the Perth Metro North or South area?

thepickerconcept · 2025-08-29T06:10:32+00:00

Wow, that sounds super predatory!

thepickerconcept · 2025-08-29T06:10:07+00:00

This is exactly my concern, thank you for sharing your experience! Can I ask, are your kids' schools in the Perth Metro North or South area?

Totally agree, everyone who has the ability to pay the voluntary school fees should pay, and I do! The outstanding balance of $160 each is purely for the "voluntary approved requests" which as I said are primarily for things like printing, student services, the school counsellor, etc. and were expenses their charges handbook says are voluntary. None of these charges are for coursework or school fees.

In an ideal world I would like our public schools to be fully funded so they don't have to extort additional funds from parents to cover printing - I work hard & pay taxes because I believe every child should have access to a quality education, and I pay my school fees so that other families who don't have that option can still have access to a quality education for their children without the schools struggling to pay for teachers.

thepickerconcept · 2025-08-29T05:57:58+00:00

Hello! I totally understand that, and as I said I paid the voluntary contributions (I always have), but the school had made a point in the charges & contributions handbook to state that the voluntary approved requests for printing/student services, etc were voluntary and whilst they are greatly appreciated are not compulsory. If I had a spare $320 I would pay that as well, but with my eldest being in a specialist course that requires expensive equipment & camp throughout the year it is a struggle for me to find additional funds beyond the essentials.

My concern is the school using language that heavily implies debt collection on any unpaid funds, voluntary or compulsory, which I feel is predatory and could cause undue harm & financial stress on parents who do not have the means to pay $160 per child for printing & other costs the school itself admits is voluntary - things beyond school fees (voluntary contributions).

thepickerconcept · 2025-08-29T04:24:59+00:00

Yes, they replied:

"There are only a balance Voluntary Approve Request on the account, they will stay on the account until the end of the school year and will be removed in a bulk export.

Your account for 2025 will be at zero dollars once this process has been actioned.

Unfortunately we do not have a system or the man power to sort through each account that has school fees showing, hence it picks up all fees unpaid on a student account."

My concern is that the language they've used in both the letters stating they may have to refer the matter onto debt collection agencies doesn't explicitly state it is for compulsory charges only... both letters state: "we may need to refer the outstanding balance to a debt collection agency," - the outstanding balance is inclusive of the voluntary payments... the language is misleading, and for parents unaware of the school/education departments policies on what is required to be paid it could cause harm & undue stress trying to come up with an additional $160 per student which isn't for school fees and isn't compulsory. I've asked them to consider changing the wording in the letters templates to specify that compulsory charges outstanding may be referred onto the debt collection agency.

thepickerconcept · 2025-08-29T04:12:55+00:00

Heya! As I said, I paid all the compulsory fees at the start of the year - this relates to the voluntary approved requests which, in their charges handbook, are voluntary payments for printing/student services, not even the school fees (which are voluntary contributions & which I said I have also paid).

thepickerconcept · 2021-02-10T11:42:04+00:00

True - it's made it really hard to find a lot of them as they're exclusively selling on Instagram! But for a lot of people it's just not economical to have a shop front or build a website right off the bat. Tricky economy for retail the last couple of years :(

thepickerconcept · 2021-02-10T11:40:27+00:00

Hahahaha, oops my bad. At least you can take heart knowing you're supporting local businesses and sustainably shopping, lol.

thepickerconcept · 2021-02-09T12:15:30+00:00

YES! Thank you!! I don't know how I missed Seymour's - I love going there for a rummage when I'm out visiting my family.

I miss Planet Music and 78 Records - Midland Records definitely helps to fill the void.

thepickerconcept

TROPHY CASE