Does your school help students who ‘miss’ classes? What do you do with parents who complain about this?
We’ve always provided makeup help for students, but now some of our parents are asking for class refunds instead of make ups… To me, since we’re teaching a skills based curriculum, students who miss class and never make up really begin to fall behind the other students. It frustrates me that some of our parents can’t see the wood for the trees… that they can be such ‘bean counters’.
Kenneth
I tape the lesson for them, and expect their parents to come and pick it up before next lesson, and (or) the student to be reasonably prepared for the next lesson.
I can’t recall having ever heard a complaint about it from a fairness/money/academic viewpoint. How many schools around Taiwan or the world will refund tuition for missed classes? It’s unreasonable on a number of levels.
We don’t refund. We tape the new material taught, and after students miss a class, we require them to come in take and tests they might have missed and go over the new material at school, in the presence of a TA (who might be supervising two or three of the rascals at once), and once it has been demonstrated that the student will be able to keep up with the next class, they are allowed to leave.
I think your parents have come to the wrong conclusion that they can call the shots. Refunds should never be an issue unless YOU have cancelled class. If THEY have cancelled, you should put the onus on them and require them to do any missed work before they start the next class. If they start missing too many classes, threaten to downgradethem.
We would never charge a student for a class WE cancelled. Unfortunately, with h1n1 going around and school classes cancelled, students are trying to come to class at our school. But we tell them they’re not allowed. We’re not allowed. Them’s the rules.
We WILL make up classes after they resume classes at school … but some of our parents have got the idea that they can get refunds or don’t need make up classes or want classes that are made up in EXACTLY the same time as their missed classes.
Where they got the idea, I don’t know. We have always said for students absent, “we will make classes up at the teacher’s discretion”. Since our teachers aren’t idiots or newbies but real pro’s, this isn’t usually a problem.
It’s starting to really annoy me, esp. since we’ll usually work our asses off for students. But I find that this set of parents only care for what they don’t get, not what they actually get.
If said parents keep complaining, I’ll likely refund their remaining semester and ask them not to come back.
Kenneth
Students with H1N1, or in suspended classes?
Eh, students in suspended classes, though we have caught a few with fevers and sent them home, too. Only one of those turned out to have h1n1, but others had serious flu. There are some nasty strains going around at the moment, not including h1n1. At least two of our students were hospitalized. But for those sent home, we’ll always try to make up class, … in some way.
So I don’t know what these parents’ problems are. We are trying to look after their kids, teach them properly, and all they care about is how many classes they missed and how much it costs them DESPITE the fact we make up class!
Kenneth
[quote=“KenTaiwan98”]
[snip]
We WILL make up classes after they resume classes at school … but some of our parents have got the idea that they can get refunds or don’t need make up classes or want classes that are made up in EXACTLY the same time as their missed classes.
Where they got the idea, I don’t know. We have always said for students absent, “we will make classes up at the teacher’s discretion”. Since our teachers aren’t idiots or newbies but real pro’s, this isn’t usually a problem.
[snip]
Kenneth[/quote]
I think they are getting the idea from news reports like this one.
It says that the Executive Yuan’s Consumer Protection Bureau and the Ministry of Education have decided that buxibans should refund tuition proportionally or make up classes where students miss class where the school canceled classes or the student missed class because of H1N1.
The Bureau states the principle that makeups are the rule and refunds are the exception pretty clearly.
But then things get a bit confusing.
[quote]
倘協調家長後不同意補課而主張終止契約者，則依未上課日數比例退還補習費用。[/quote]
If after discussions with parents there is no agreement on makeup classes and a claim that the contract has been terminated is made, buxiban tuition must be refunded proportionally based on the number of class days.
I translated this in the passive voice to show why parents and schools might argue over this. To me, it seems clear that the missing subject/agent is the buxiban. So if the buxiban decides not to offer makeup classes and the buxiban then terminates the contract, then the buxiban can decide to refund tuition rather than making up classes. But I think it is easy to see that if the “discussions with parents” over the makeup classes do not go to the liking of the parents, the parents may feel that they can terminate the contract and demand a refund. Some parents might even think that they can reject makeup classes at thier discretion, receive a refund, and continue classes without terminating. Indeed, if the school offered the makeup class at an inconvenient time such as 10am on a school day, the parents might well have a good argument for this. Things would be more messy if a busy parent felt that the time of a more reasonably scheduled make up class did not fit into their schedule.
其次，當未達停課標準時，消費者被診斷為確診病例，又不願意補課時，也要依未上課日數比例退還費用。
If the buxiban has not reached the threshold for stopping classes but a consumer has been diagnosed with H1N1 and is unwilling to make up classes, tuition must be refunded proportionally based on the number of unattended class days.
Here it sounds to me like the consumer decides whether to accept makeup classes.
I would guess that many parents are just glancing at the news quickly and concluding that if classes are cancelled because of H1N1, they are entitled to a refund. The confusing language of the news reports (based no doubt on press releases from the Consumer Bureau) are not helping matters.
Therein lies the confusion:
Things would be more messy if a busy parent felt that the time of a more reasonably scheduled make up class did not fit into their schedule.
We have offered make-up classes to one of the parents, unfortunately, she doesn’t want them. However, one of the classes is a major exam, without which the student cannot proceed to the next level. Hence the issue. It is doubtful the student can complete the exam on her own time without help from the teacher, so we need to help her. I’m inclined to let the kid try the exam without any help just to let the parent see the problem. But it’s also true I’m inclined to offer a full refund for the remainder of the classes and be done with the problem and the parent, though I like the kids involved.
Kenneth
The other issue is that one girl is claiming the same thing but she wasn’t even off for H1N1, just regular flu. It’s really ridiculous. I like the way that the education dept. seems to be making business decisions for us, even though they don’t pay the rent, the salaries or the electricity bills that go into running our school.
Kenneth
An interesting read here for sure. Looks like in the future they may try to get refunds for any or all missed classes for whatever reason if the gov gives them the go ahead. Adults and kids miss classes for every reason one can concieve of and I seldom refund. However I do feel that H1N1 is another matter all together that may warant a refund if they can’t or won’t do a makeup. Sometimes refunds in this situation can keep the peace in the school since they are in fact all counting their beans here. Would be nice if they weren’t so tight and actually cared about the school. Some of them are real penny pinchers.
Unfortunately for the individual parents, if they are unwilling to make up classes, can’t pass the exam with a reasonable grade, and don’t complete the missing work to the class teacher’s satisfaction, we will remove them from their scheduled class, and put them in a lower class.
This is absolutely NOT what we want to do but … one of the girl’s involved has been absent for a fifth time in the past semester, received a failing grade on her recent assignment and is generally a spoilt brat. Of course, we can’t help the latter point.
My colleagues are avoiding telling the parent unpleasant news, I don’t know why.
Some of these kids are nearly impossible to teach and it often best to simply let them go. There are many so called spoiled brats here. Thank God there are the good ones too or I would go nuts. :roflmao: A lot of these kids could care less about English or the teacher and the parents are lame.
