soozievt

I think we're mixing up the summer hours thing with the task at hand. The sending of transcripts is usually not over the summer but rather in the fall. The sending of transcripts is part of their job or the secretaries' job and like NMR says, an employee is not going to be paid more or less depending on how many transcripts she/he has to send. Their salary will be the same. As a former teacher myself, in public schools, I put in COUNTLESS hours outside the school day....after school, evenings, weekends, and summer. My pay was the same whether I only worked during the school hours or not. My pay was the same whether I had 15 students in my class or 22. So, the transcripts are sent during the school year primarily and not in summer (many students' college lists are not solidified by June of junior year!). So, how many transcripts are sent doesn't change the GCs' hours or pay during the school year.

However, on the issue of required days for a school employee to come into school over the summer, they should be paid if those are contracted days of work beyond the school calendar contracted days. That is different than a teacher choosing to come into school to do some work (which I did lots of outside my contracted time....like NMR says, even in August to get my class ready). But required work days that are in a contract, should be paid. That is rather different than this transcript issue, in my opinion.

It does not cost them $30 to send the transcript in terms of cost of paper. It doesn't even cost them additional salary fees since the GC is going to work for the same salary no matter how many transcripts are sent. In your school, llong, they are not even mailing the packages! Again, if they want to charge for an unreasonable amount of apps, such as over 10 or 12, I can see that. But the amount you are being charged, let alone for over 6, is not reasonable.

kaysmom

llong, I am surprised that your school lets you handle the mailing of your child's transcript. Is it like that for most of you on cc? NC law will NOT allow transcripts to even be given to parents to mail. They have to be mailed directly from the school.

That $30 fee....$25 fee or whatever is just ridiculous! As someone who has taught in public high school, I truly have never heard of something like that at all. I mean is it really that much more work to print a few more copies out? If all the paperwork is organized and together, it shouldn't even require that much more time for the counselor at all. I can see private schools getting away with it though because they really do add fees to everything they can! Crazy!

llong39

Our Guidance office has always handed us the transcripts to mail. This is my fourth child to graduate. They are given in sealed envelopes with a sticker over the seam so it can't be opened.

MichaelNKat

FERPA applies to any h.s. and college that accepts federal money.

This whole issue with fees is both ridiculous and outrageous. My daughter went to a public h.s with about 650 kids in her graduating class, about 85-90% of which applied to colleges (and usually multiple ones). All we had to do was give her guidance counselor stamped addressed envelops. We did it for initial transcripts at time of application (which covered up through 11th grade and included school report issued by GC), mid-year report and final transcript post graduation. No fees charged. Think about it; how much effort does it take to have registrar's office print copies off the computer, stick them in envelops and put them in the mail. As to school reports, it can be done as one form filled out once and then put through a copy machine for each college and individually signed. Minimal time, minimal cost to the schools. The "clerical" time to get transcripts and reports out for a dozen schools is, what, 15 minutes? The only thing that takes time is completing the school report that usually has detailed guidance counselor comments but even that, once done, can be copied and used for each school. Sure there is a crush in the fall when much of this activity is going on but that's part of the planned work year and schedule.

That all being said, we got A LOT of mileage out of sending my daughter's GC a basket of cookies, fruit etc in the middle of the process. It is a frenzied pressured time for all involved in the process and the goodies were very much appreciated. We had NO issues of the GC being responsive in a timely manner on any of our requests.

Mainstage

Transcripts were never offered to us....I would have been happy to make copies etc. (Pre-college transcripts were given in sealed envelopes so that I could mail return receipt.) We were never allowed to view the letters of recommendations...that was a BIG taboo (seems in the past that some parents were not thrilled with what was said about their children, therefore, pressuring teachers to make changes!) I too thought the fee was "crazy" (especially when that was their (CC's) jobs-we had 3+ counselors for 160 seniors-only 2 applying to M/T programs), but went along with it so that the paperwork kept moving. I guess I was avoiding the added stress, and most of us know what I'm talking about. ;-)

llong39

I like the idea of the cookies and goodies for the GC. The GC assigned to my son was able to get his info turned around in a week. But we did request it early. I am going to attach this thread in an email to the Principal, Superintendent, and Board of Education when I finish the rest of my research.
I didn't know FERPA had anything to so with High Schools. Thanks for the clarification.

Mainstage

FYI- to my above post-
CC - College Counselors - we had a separate office which ONLY handled
college

GC - Guidance Counselors were available as well

llong39;
- $30 and public - wow now that is excessive!

soozievt

We have no separate counselors just for college related advising here. The GCs deal with every aspect of school and with every type of student....one third are not even college bound. The student keeps the same guidance counselor from seventh through twelfth, though they may have now changed that to ninth through twelfth.

As my kids finished each application, they went into their GC and told him and then he packaged up his package (which was separate) which included transcript , school profile, counselor report and teacher recs. My kids even helped him with the copier and it was always done right away. I think he may have upwards of 275 students but all are not seniors. I also believe the secretary does some of the work as well of this nature.

snomom

I was just discussing today with fellow employees how the counselors at my D's school provide very little assistance to our students. Luckily our school does not charge for transcripts (yet). My Ds counsler was less then pleased to find out she was applying to more than 2 schools. He actually told me that was ridiculous. He hasn't wanted to do too much work anyway including fixing her schedule that was totally wrong. These schools are crazy for charging so much for transcripts. I guess I was under the impression that was one of the things the schools provide the students.

ChellyBelly42

the idea of charging for transcripts seems so ridiculous to me. my school does it all for free- prints them, mails them, and everything. we just have to turn the request form in 2-3 weeks in advance for EA and ED, and 1 month in advance for RD.

I was a guidance aide my freshman year, and my big job was to help the secretary with transcripts. The most time-consuming part of the job was printing out the labels to put on the envelopes (because she needed to figure out how many for each school to print). It... doesn't take that much time. We could get about 50 transcripts printed, stamped, and sealed in an envelope in each 42-minute block.