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Stateline-area parents struggling with proliferating school fees

BELOIT — Parents like Nancy Marx don’t need calculators — although their children are required to have them for classes — to tell them that the cost of education pushes higher and higher each year.

School fees and expenses for the Beloit mother of two and thousands of other Stateline-area families are climbing, and they’re an increasing hardship for many families struggling in a stagnant economy.

“The fees are outrageous,” said Marx, whose son Daniel is a 2010 Beloit Memorial High School graduate and whose son Matthew, 15, will be a sophomore when classes begin Wednesday. “We’ve had to pay more than $200 for each of them. We’ve had to use the payment plan. It’s not that they’re always huge, but $10 here, $5 there and it adds up.”

School officials say fees are a way to compensate for budget shortfalls they blame on the Wisconsin funding formula. John Acomb, who has been on the Beloit School Board since 2007, said the situation likely won’t change anytime soon.

The situation in Illinois is similar, with officials blaming the need for fees on cuts in state funding for schools that total $311 million for 2010-’11.

“It’s obvious that it hurts when people have to write out that check to pay for registration, athletic fees and everything,” said Hononegah High School Superintendent Randy Gross, who is beginning his fifth year with the district. “But at the same time, they understand that the value is there. To offer quality programs for their students, there will be costs. …"

Read the full story in the e-edition of The Stateline News, HERE.