Not Paying For Extracurriculars May Cost More Than Paying |
Monday, November 26, 2007 4:04:40 PM - Middletown Ohio |
by Bill Rogers
According to Superintendent Steve Price, Middletown City Schools have more money to lose by not funding extracurriculars than they do by funding them.
Due to the majority of Middletown's students being categorized as 'economically disadvantaged', continued operation of a pay-to-play policy for extracurriculars would drive 300-400 students to other districts at only a conservative estimate, according to Dr. Price. The city's extracurriculars program costs about $900,000 a year to operate, equal to the amount of funding provided by the state for only 234 students.
After the failure of the May and August school levies, the school board had to increase extracurricular fees to $900 per student for GMC sports, $500 for middle school sports, $325 for chess and academic teams and $75-95 for other academic activities. Previously, the fee to play in school sports was only $50 per student.
To bring down the fees to manageable levels for the many economically disadvantaged students in the area, coaches and advisers for sports offered to volunteer their time pending the passage of both the renewal and increase levies on November 6th. This helped lower the fees for participating students by nearly two thirds.
On November 6th, the renewal levy did pass, but the increase did not. Regardless, the school board decided to reimburse the volunteers for their time. Over a hundred students left the district in the tough times Middletown City Schools fell on before the passing of the November 6th levy, costing the district hundreds of thousands of dollars in state funding.
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