Public school districts across Indiana are pondering the prospect of charging athletes, or rather their parents, fees to play interscholastic sports.
The reasoning: if athletes pay — as do most musical students — for uniforms, coaches and travel, school boards could save thousands in non-academic expenses. The Anderson Community Schools board has discussed options where teams look for outside sponsors, how to cover expenses for financially-strapped families and ways to equitably administer the policy.
But the issue is so new that parents, who are already paying taxes for school-related salaries, transportation and building upkeep, among other funds, have viable questions that must be answered before school boards move forward.
Do football players, in the sport that typically draws the most participation and highest number of spectators, pay the same fee as a soccer player in a lesser attended sport? Does the student-athlete lose his or her chance for a college athletic scholarship if they get the boot from their high school squad because they fall behind on team dues? Do middle school students pay the same as those in high school; freshman teams the same as varsity? How much does the athlete pay who starts a game compared to those who sit on the bench?
Parents and students, those in sports and any extracurricular activity, should follow the discussions. Perhaps sports, music and service groups should band together to form a cohesive voice in understanding and debating pay-to-play policies. If they don’t show unity and concern for their child’s activities, then school boards will quickly dismiss sports and other groups for being valueless. Now is the time to show the positive values that are reinforced by extracurricular endeavors.
Now is the time for athletes to stand up and convince school boards that they have learned teamwork and discipline through their sport. For some students, the lack of family support is replaced by teams, bands and clubs.
Blake Ress, commissioner of the Indiana High School Athletic School Association, wrote of a North Carolina study in which athletes scored a grade point average of 2.86 compared to 1.96 for non-athletes. Athletes recorded 6.52 absences in a 180-day school year compared to 12.57 days for non-athletes.
Parents need to push their school principals, club leaders and athletic and music directors to reveal the full costs of their activities.
A majority of us likely believe that students should pay for non-academic activities. We accept those realities when confronted by school districts that need to cut millions for their budgets.
But what this pay-to-play dilemma truly points to is a need to revamp the state formula for funding schools. Cuts in salaries, staff and programs are filtering down to extracurricular activities — the after-school events that make for good students and good communities.
Sacrifice can only go so far. The state’s funding formula has attacked the character of our classrooms. Now it’s going after the character-building programs outside the classroom.
Editorials
Editorial: Questions abound with pay-to-play discussion
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