District 211 waives student fees due to pandemic

The Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 board of education Thursday voted to waive the $170 instructional fee and $75 per semester student parking fee for the 2020-21 school year to help families financially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last month, the board requested information on the possibility of waiving fees in response to the pandemic.

Superintendent Lisa Small noted about a third of district students already have fees waived due to qualifying for the free and reduced lunch program. Her report added a portion of those waived fees are recovered through federal Title I funding.

The report estimated waiving the 2020-21 school year fees would total approximately $1.6 million. It further noted the district would offset the financial impact as it ended the 2019-20 school year with a $4.5 million budget surplus that was largely a result of school closures and expenditure reductions during the last quarter of the school year due to the pandemic.