Parents to be charged fee for late pick-up at multiple Richland County School District Two schools

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - On Monday morning, Longleaf Middle School parents were notified by the Parent Square app of a $15 late pick-up fee, effective immediately.

The school day at Longleaf Middle School ends at 3:15 p.m. and parents must pick up their student or students by 3:45 p.m.

If the child or children are picked up after 3:45 p.m., the parent or guardian is charged $15.

District officials say six out of the seven middle schools in the district have this policy in place.

Senior Chief Officer of Communications Greg Turchetta explains why this fee is being put in place.

“We have some students that are 45-plus minutes late where the parents don’t pick them up. They get moved to aftercare or the office staff ends up having to watch them for that 45 minutes. The office staff isn’t scheduled to be there to do that. So there’s a cost to it,” said Turchetta.

Parents with busy work schedules tend to not have a way to avoid the $15 late fee when given.

Turchetta also suggests that the problem can be solved by sending students to aftercare at the end of each school day to avoid the fee.

“I would say to parents, if you’re regularly having trouble getting to the school on time, sign them up for aftercare. Then the $15 doesn’t become a problem because you would already going to have to pay for it. But it’s unfair to ask the school to take care of kids multiple times a week when we’re not staffed to do it. We got to pay them too,” said Turchetta.

District officials state that the $15 fee will help cover the additional staffing and resources required to maintain a safe environment for all students throughout the school year.

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