City council decides to amend the school transport statutes
At its meeting today, the City Council adopted amendments to the school transport statutes. The City of Chemnitz is thus following various instructions from the Saxon Education Agency. The new statutes come into force on 1 January 2018.
Addition to the eligibility requirements
In future, travel costs will also be reimbursed during the assessment procedure for special educational needs at general special schools. According to the previous statutes, these journeys were not considered school attendance and were therefore not eligible for reimbursement. In addition, from the new year, travel costs for attending preparatory classes for pupils with a migration background will also be covered.
Extension of the own contribution waiver
From 1 January 2018, the own contribution will be waived from the third child onwards for all pupils attending a school in the city of Chemnitz. The original administrative proposal, according to which the waiver of the personal contribution, which previously only applied to Chemnitz pupils, was to be cancelled for reasons of equal treatment, was amended at the suggestion of the School and Sports Committee. In addition, the procedure for waiving the personal contribution for pupils using public or private transport or the school bus will be simplified from the third child onwards: instead of the annual application, in future only a one-off application will be required for the respective type of school (grades 1 to 4, grades 5 to 10, grades 11 and 12).
Harmonisation of the co-payment regulation
The current different levels of personal contributions when using a school bus or special transport services will be harmonised. From 2018, a standardised own contribution of 50 percent of the cheapest public transport ticket is to be paid. This corresponds to the amount of the reimbursement of travel costs when using public or private transport. For parents whose children are dependent on special transport services, this means a noticeable financial relief, as the previously staggered personal contribution based on kilometres is no longer applicable.