District 308 Board to Consider Fee Increases for Driver's Ed, Other Courses

The cost is about to go up for seven Oswego School District courses, including driver’s education, if the District 308 Board of Education agrees to the increase.

The proposed fee increases were presented to the board on Monday night, and will be voted on next month. According to Tim Neubauer, the district’s executive director of finance services, the costs are reviewed every year, and these increases, with one exception, will be used to cover workbooks and other course tools that cannot be returned or reused.

That one exception is driver’s education, which currently costs $250 to take, and would see an increase to $300. That change, according to the presentation, takes the fee to the maximum allowed, but still does not cover the cost of conducting the class.

“We’ve been losing money on it,” Neubauer said, adding that the cost to rent or buy cars has increased, as has the cost to insure instructors.

Four of the other courses currently have no fee attached. If the increases are approved, AP Spanish Language would cost $35, to cover the cost of a workbook, while AP Spanish Literature would run $25, to cover a workbook and a paperback textbook. Pre-Calculus would cost $5 for a workbook, and AP French Language and Culture would cost $80, and include a workbook and access to a special website.

AP Calculus II would cost $4, an increase of $1, due to a more expensive workbook, and Honors Earth Science would see its fee jump from $2 to $15, to cover the cost of “minerals, rocks, wave demo materials and other consumables (that) have increased as the class has developed,” according to the presentation.

The District 308 board will consider the price increases at its Dec. 12 meeting.