Lounge of Tomorrow - I'm not sure this is legal.....what do you think?

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- - I'm not sure this is legal.....what do you think? (http://74.208.121.111/LoT/showthread.php?t=8095)

Psst, SL is also an attorney.

The private school my mom is the secretary for and that I volunteer with, The Special Needs Schools of Gwinnett has a very similar policy. Except that the fee for not doing your allotted time results in a lower fee (like 50 bucks). I will go ahead and say that parents who work at the school are covered because they are already doing their hours working for the school. If the Woflette's School is like ours (yes I am possesive of these wonderful kids I help out) than you should be fine.

While it seems that the school in question wants to cut costs and replace paid workers with volunteers the reasoning for doing the same at th Special Needs School is different. the aim of our game is to increase the bonds we have tiogether as a group. We really are a family of kindred spirits and go through the same things. It increases the sense of community. There really wasn't too much of a problem until tyhe school started getting a lot of new students because of the new vouchers for special needs children in the state of Georgia (a mell of a hess if you want my opinion on the matter...but that is another rant for another day)

If this were a public school, then I'd say, yeah there would be some serious legal issues.

But it isn't. Yeah it's crappy, but I'd bet that in the contract that is signed between you and the school, there is some sort of provision that you either have to abide by the policies of the Internal Board, or whatever. Or if it's a new contract signed every year, then they're basically saying "here are the terms, either you're agreeing to this by sending your kid here/signing the 2008-2009 contract, or you can find a different school." There may be an ethical issue here but I don't think there's a legal one.

Yeah, the school might be leaving itself open to liability issues by implementing this policy w/o doing background checks of the parents but again, you kid isn't being forced to go to the school either if you feel that uncomfortable with it.

Thanks everyone....I guess if we want to keep Wolfette at the school we just have to volunteer our hours. If not, we lose the $150.00 deposit and put her into Public School.

OK, they win!

I have no direct experience but stuff like this seems to be pretty common among friends with kids in private schools.

The only part that seems questionable is requiring volunteer work from a paid employee.

It does state in the letter "a family member", which would end up being my hubby if I'm not allowed to volunteer. He just doesn't have time, so another problem arises....!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by wolfy999 (Post 219778)

It does state in the letter "a family member", which would end up being my hubby if I'm not allowed to volunteer. He just doesn't have time, so another problem arises....!!

I came across as a bit harsh in my above post without intending to :)

However, I think that if the issue is "parent involvement" you can probably talk to them about your specific situation since you work at the school already. You're already involved, above and beyond the intent of the reason for having this PIP. However, if it's a situation where your regular paid work is forcing you to do volunteer work or risk getting ejected from your job (as opposed to, say just the $200), then that isn't kosher.

The school we were going to put Z in was the same way. They also had many other requirements that we decided it wasn't worth jumping through all their hoops after all.

Hopefully they will be willing to work with you, since you already work for them!