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No More Free Rides At CMS?
The plan calls for charging a $50 fee per student-athlete for each middle school sport they field. Based on projected participation rates, the fees would generate $246,500. The plan also includes $100 participation fees for high school athletics, projected to raise $751,800, and for charging a $1 surcharge on tickets to all sporting events, which would raise an additional $263,000.
The district would work with outside partners to provide scholarships for eligible students who couldn’t afford the pay-to-play fees, said CMS Chief Operating Officer Hugh Hattabaugh.
Scholarships would be essential, said school board member Joyce Waddell, who expressed concerns with the possibility that high-poverty students would no be able to participate in sports programs.
“These are things that will keep them in school,” she said. “When they can’t pay, I don’t want to see because they’re poor they’re eliminated.”
The move toward pay-to-play fees, Hattabaugh said, is gaining traction across the country. Thirty-five states currently have school systems that require students to pay a fee for athletics, Hattabaugh said, including Seattle City Schools, which charges $50, and Ann Arbor Michigan Schools, which charges from $50 to $100 per sport.
The school board didn’t vote on the proposal, but several members gave it high marks. Rhonda Lennon said she could support the pay-to-play option not only because it would salvage middle school athletics, but also because it could potentially remove what is a perennial budget battle from future debate.
“We don’t have to talk about do we save or cut middle school sports again,” Lennon said. “It will be self-funded.”
Well, maybe. What would happen, asked Merchant, if the district’s revenue projections and pay-to-play participation levels came up short?
School officials expect a 25 percent drop in participation with pay-to-play; the question remains, however, of whether the 75 percent of student-athletes who still take to the field will have paid before the whistle blows.
“What if we get to Februray and we don’t have the revenue,” Merchant said. “Do we just not play baseball?”
“No funds, no programs,” Gorman said.
Hattabaugh offered that timelines would have to be put in place for when athletes have to pay before the start of their particular sport’s season.
Another pay-to-play option, which included the same fee structure and no ticket surcharge, but eliminated five of the 13 sports offered at middle schools, didn’t gain any visible support from the board.
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Thanks for the coverage Mark. Last night was the 3rd time that I have floated the idea of a tiered fee schedule for magnet transportation. My thinking on the subject has always been:
1. Magnet schools are a choice
2. Magnet transportation costs per student are generally higher than transportation costs per student for assigned home schools
3. With declining government funding, the public demand to maintain existing service levels, and the waxing punditry about the need to find “alternative revenue sources,” why would we not approach the source most likely to provide that revenue – the end-user?
4. Fees could pass through our foundation or another created endowment fund. They would not supplant government funds for transportation, but would supplement them – which seems to be allowed under 115C-492 to “improve and increase” function, to “enlarge…areas of service,” or to make services “more useful to a greater number of people.” In our current situation with transportation to several magnets, we are cutting function, shrinking the service area, making the service less useful, and likely reducing the number of users.
5. Fees would only offset costs, not replace them. Again, there would be a 2 or 3 tiered system that could easily fall along the same lines as FRL status. (Stay focused here…)
The pushback I have heard is:
1. We would be taking away access to public education… Actually, that is incorrect. The transportation fee system is tiered to protect those who do not have the means to pay – they would not be asked to… Further, it would only apply to magnets. Those who could pay but did not want to pay could go to their home schools with a free bus ride.
2. The fee might cause bright flight, as people would leave for independent and parochial schools… Well if that is the case, those families were just looking for a reason. Why would you pay many thousands of dollars and move your child in order to avoid paying several hundred dollars to leave your student in the magnet you selected as a great fit?
3. The fee would hurt magnets by driving people back to their home schools… The reality is that our shuttle stops will do that to greater degree. See above for reminders about the economic protections of the tiered system. And again, families have chosen these magnets for a reason – they see a value and differentiation in the school they have researched and selected. I would think that value is worth more than several hundred dollars to those families.
I hope you’ll stay after this one. See you at the T-Ball fields… Take care, TRENT
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At the same time they are trying to save sports and their jobs the athletics office gets a nice big renovation with furniture kitchen carpet expansion plus. That could pay for an entire job or sport at a middle school at least. Priorities?
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Matt Comer. Matt Comer said: CMS wants pay structure for school bus rides? Result: increase traffic as more kids become car riders. #fail #clt http://snipr.com/vw9b4 [...]
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