Published: Tuesday, May. 27, 2008 / Updated: Wednesday, May. 28, 2008 09:04 AM
Paying to Play
CH-CHING: $50 fee possible in future
- Mac Banks
Kansas City Chiefs head coach Herm Edwards once said, "You play to win the game."
| The Fort Mill School District may put a new spin on that: "You pay to play the game." | |
| The school district is studying the idea of asking parents to pay user fees for sports at the high school and middle school levels. | |
| Implementing it into this year's $68.1 million budget has been discussed, but that doesn't not seem likely. The budget needs to be approved at the school board's June 2 meeting. Assistant Superintendent of Finance Leanne Lordo said she isn't sure how long the study would take. | |
| "In all likelihood, I don't know if it would come to fruition for next year," Lordo said. "There is a lot of unanswered questions. We want to be through in our evaluation." | |
| Although it most likely won't be a part of the 2008-09 budget, district officials have mentioned charging $50 to play sports. That would be a one-time fee per student and charged whether a student plays one sport or three. That $50 fee could bring in up to $200,000 for the district. | |
| "We are up against the wall," said board member Diane Dasher. "Other school districts do it to pay for things like transportation." | |
| Those students on free and reduced lunches would most likely be exempted from the $50 fee. | |
| "We want everybody to have the opportunity," Dasher said. | |
| One school district within the state already charging $50 for students to play sports is Lexington One School District. The district started doing so in 2001-02 school year and did so because of hard economic times. | |
| "It's serving its purpose," said John Butler, Lexington One CFO. "We were trying to find a way to help fund the programs without using general fund resources." | |
| One person in that school district at that time was Beverley Bowman, now the principal at Nation Ford. Bowman was an assistant principal at White Knoll High when the district started charging. | |
| "Initially, we has some parents who were concerned because of the money," Bowman said. "We started charging because of the busing and cost of gas at that time." | |
| Bowman said she doesn't think the $50 fee is an unreasonable amount to charge and said she would prefer the district not be in the position where it would have to charge the fee. | |
| "If we want to continue these programs, we have to figure how to cut corners somehow," she said. | |
| Bowman said before any decision is made, she wants to sit down with the Falcons' booster club and see how much they help out. | |
| "I want to sit down with our booster leaders and with our books and see what they bring in," Bowman said. "Our booster club plays a significant role in maintaining our programs. We want to continue to provide the programs we have." | |
| Fort Mill High Principal Dee Christopher said he understands the reasoning behind charging to play sports. | |
| "Our mandate as a school is to educate and graduate students," he said. "But extracurricular are vital to that mission, whether its sports or clubs." | |
| Christopher said as a parent himself, he understands it's not unlikely for parents to have to pay some type of fee for their kids to play club sports or in different leagues. | And in most cases, those sign-up fees don't include things such as transportation, which is provided by the parents most of the time. |
| Board member Patrick White understands that logic as well. | |
| "It's a bargain compared to what people pay at Leroy Springs and YMCA," White said about the $50 fee. | |
| White, who will have two children playing sports next year at the high school level, said he would like to see the district start charging to play sports for the 2008-09 year. | |
| "We need to understand what we are paying for and do it," he said. "I don't want to rush into things, but if we had the money the state was suppose to give us, we wouldn't be talking about this." |
