CMS Middle School Sports Slip Sack
You could not ask for a more effective and perfectly executed scare-and-fear campaign than the one just completed by outgoing Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Superintendent Peter Gorman and his complicit cohorts on the board of education.
Starting months ago, Gorman & Co. were busy rolling out dire budget projections that called for upwards of $100 million cuts, with ominous warnings that scores of front-line educators were at risk of losing their jobs, the district’s vaunted Bright Beginnings pre-K program would have to be eliminated, and hundreds of kids would be deprived of the chance to play middle school sports because the programs were on the chopping block.
Fast forward to earlier this month when county commissioners forked over an additional $26 million in local funding for CMS, after being left in the dark about a state funding windfall that had funneled its way into CMS coffers, and – presto – teacher layoffs have been averted, Bright Beginnings has been saved.
Then today we get this: district officials have somehow, magically, lo and behold, found enough money to save middle school sports. Well played, soon-to-be-departing Superintendent Gorman; well played, indeed.
CMS officials, contrary to predictions made back when the scare-and-fear campaign was in full swing, now say that the pay-to-play sport fees implemented last year – $50 per middle school sport and $100 per high school sport – along with an additional $1 charge tacked onto tickets for high school games, generated enough loot to save at least eight middle-school sports.
“Although a larger percentage of high school participation fees will be used to fund high school sports in 2011-2012, we will be able to use the remainder of those funds, as well as ticket fees, community donations and middle school participation fees, to offer limited middle school sports,” according to a memo distributed to school principals from CMS Chief Operating Officer Hugh Hattabaugh and interim Athletic Director Sue Doran.
According to the memo, the so-called “hybrid models” being offered for middle school sports include: Fall Season 2011 – boys football, girls cheerleading, and girls volleyball; Winter Season 2011-12: boys and girls basketball and girls cheerleading; Spring Season 2012: boys and girls track and field.
The sports were chosen based on high participation rates in recent years, Hattabaugh and Doran explain, and because they meet Title IX requirements. Left on the sidelines for the coming year: softball, baseball, soccer and golf.
At least for now, unless, you know, CMS somehow suddenly discovers a few more magic money beans hiding under an Ed Shed couch.
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