Hopefully Wise County Schools won't read this......

Should Montgomery Co. students have to pay to play?

Montgomery County will be the first locality in the region to charge a fee to compete in sports -- $100 per student.

By Mike Gangloff
381-1669




Daniel Lin | The Roanoke Times

Blacksburg High School soccer players huddle during a game Wednesday night. The Montgomery County School Board had to make some difficult decisions this budget season, in part because of debt tied to construction projects, such as the new Blacksburg High School visible in the background.


How it works

Montgomery County?s $100 fee applies to these high school extracurricular activities: baseball, basketball, cheerleading, cross country, debate/forensics, football, golf, indoor and outdoor track, scholastic bowl, school publications, soccer, softball, swimming and diving, tennis, theater festival, volleyball and wrestling. It also would affect eighth-graders who play on varsity teams.
Fee is $100 per student per activity, cap of $300 per family during an academic year.
Fee waived for students who have reduced-price lunches.
Fee is not required to try out for an activity, but must be paid once someone joins team before first game or activity. It is not refundable.
Coaches, sponsors and staff members continue to determine the extent of team members? participation. Paying does not guarantee playing.
CHRISTIANSBURG -- The reaction to Montgomery County's new pay-to-play policy for high school sports and other activities was fierce and immediate.

"I couldn't hardly get on Facebook, there were so many comments" criticizing pay-to-play, said school board member Jamie Bond, an opponent of the measure.

Approved May 16 in a package of cost-saving measures, the requirement that parents spend $100 per student to let them play sports, join a debate team or take part in other extracurricular programs prompted debate from the moment it was proposed. The policy is scheduled to kick in next school year. It is believed to be the first such fee in the region, although other Virginia localities have instituted similar fees. And pay-to-play fees are being used in a number of other states.

"A lot of kids, sports is all they have," said Wendy Bower of Montgomery County's Elliston community, adding that she hopes school officials will reconsider the fee before her children, now in elementary school and middle school, are old enough to be affected.

"I know they've got to come up with the money somewhere, but ... I'd rather think there's smarter ways of doing it," Bower said last week.

Ken Tilley, executive director of the Virginia High School League, wrote in an email that he sees pay-to-play fees as among "the least attractive options" as schools across the commonwealth wrestle with growing budget problems.

Probably 20 Virginia school systems have some version of pay-to-play, Tilley wrote.

He cited a Michigan study that found a 10 percent drop in participation with a $100 fee and a 20 percent drop with a $200 fee, and said the VHSL has tried to help schools find new revenue through sports licensing and other means.

Montgomery County's new fee applies to an array of VHSL-sanctioned activities ranging from forensics to football to cheerleading to scholastic bowl. Families would have a $300 cap per school year, and the fee would be waived for students on the reduced-price lunch program.

Some speakers at governmental hearings in recent months were supportive of the fee, saying it makes far more sense than cutting core academic programs or teaching positions.

But opponents such as Bond, one of two school board members voicing opposition to pay-to-play during the board's final, past-midnight budget discussion, said the fee still will make it harder to engage students who might be lured toward academic success by sports -- who might keep their grades up to stay on a team.

"I've heard story after story about how extracurricular activities, sports in particular, keep kids focused. ... If kids want to be there, they might come home with a little bit more. They might learn a little bit more," Bond said last week.

The new fees came after the school system scrambled to make up a $4.2 million budget gap caused by shifts in county and state support and the school board's unwillingness to immediately write off an array of positions funded by now-ended federal stimulus money.

Montgomery County's finances have been savaged this year by the continuing economic slump; a state budget that required sharp increases in local contributions to the state retirement fund; and debt from an ongoing building program that in recent years has included two new elementary schools and a courthouse, and more recent construction of high schools in Blacksburg and Riner, and renovation of Auburn Middle School.

Estimated revenue from the new fees is only $74,000 in the schools' $92 million operating budget. Schools spokeswoman Brenda Drake said the schools system spends about $400,000 each year on the VHSL activities covered by the new fee. In addition, schools pay for equipment, referees and other costs, she said.

But after teachers and residents blasted the board for seeming to put extracurricular activities above academics in this year's budget cuts, school officials said it was important to spread the pain.

"Basically if we didn't do pay to play, we were going to be cutting another teacher and a half," Superintendent Brenda Blackburn said last week. "It's not a pretty thing to have to do, but in the current situation -- no good choices."

Even with pay-to-play and other program cuts, Blackburn was left with having to find 25 teaching positions and 15 administrative and support positions to leave vacant next year. School officials have said they hope to accomplish this through regular attrition rather than laying off teachers and other workers.

Parents of student athletes often are already stretched by uniform and equipment costs, Bond said. With a new fee added, "The ones that don't get to do that sport or that second sport -- what are they doing in the evenings?" she asked.

Kitty Felty, a parent from Elliston, echoed Bond's comments, saying, "There are too many things that are taken away from kids as it is. If you take away sports, they'll be getting into other things they shouldn't be into."

Felty's name was among hundreds on an online petition opposing pay-to-play. She said the waiver for lower-income families doesn't make the new policy fair.

"There are plenty of people too proud to sign up for that," she said.

Like other critics of pay-to-play, Felty said she did not support higher taxes to help the school budget, but wished the school board and other levels of government, too, -- could find better ways to allocate money.

"That's the whole country," Felty said, laughing.

Khristine Hurst of Shawsville said that if the fee had been in effect during the academic year that just ended, her daughter could not have played the multiple sports that she did.

"They just got done with softball today. ... If it goes into effect next year, I don't know if she'll go back," Hurst said last week.

Augusta County schools Superintendent Chuck Bishop said his system was just completing its first year with a participation fee and it had gone smoothly.

"We didn't hear any negative reaction. We haven't heard any reaction during the course of the year," Bishop said.

Augusta charges a $25 participation fee per sport, with a waiver for students who qualify for reduced-price lunches. "We're still cheaper than many of our Little League programs," said Bishop, a former superintendent of Radford City Schools.

But the fee has let the Augusta County School Board strip all support for athletics from its budget except for coaching stipends, Bishop said.

Lynchburg recently adopted a pay-to-play policy for next year, but spokeswoman Cindy Babb said the amount of the fee and other details had yet to be worked out. The city is considering a $100 fee for high-school students and $50 for middle-schoolers, with the amount halved for students who are eligible for reduced-price lunches.

The measure has prompted community discussion, but "I think people kind of understand -- money's got to come from somewhere," Babb said.

Montgomery County approved a record real estate tax increase this year, boosting it 12 cents to 87 cents per $100 value. Nearly all the new revenue was dedicated to debt for the construction of the two high schools and the middle school renovation, although schools received some new county money to offset changes in state support.

Jim Politis, chairman of the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors, had supported a tax increase of less than 12 cents. He said the flap over pay-to-play did not change his stance on taxes, and was a matter for the school system, not the supervisors, to come to grips with.

"The school board makes those decisions," Politis said last week. "We give them the money and they figure out how to spend it. ... We make our choices and they have to make theirs."

This is really nothing new, even to this region/county. If you cheer, play ball or almost anything there you usually have to pay for uniforms and such. Even the band had to pay a "rental" fee for using the uniforms. My daughters all had to pay not only for their uniforms, but other items as well. Things such as, but not limited to bags to put their equipment in, pom-poms for cheerleading, etc. So, the fee is really not a new thing around here. 100 bucks is actually pretty cheap, considering my girl' fees for cheerleading alone usually ran around 250 and more.

You are correct that there are expenses related to participation but the point of the article is that Montgomery County is charging ALL participants of VHSL activities $100 just for the priviledge of participating as a means to meet budget shortfalls. The expenses you mentioned will be in addition to this.

Basically it falls if your on a sports VHSL Eligibility list you have to pay the $100 per sport. I don't think it would help much in the surrounding counties, because I would bet at least 45-50% of students in Lee, Wise, Scott, Dickenson counties get reduced lunch. Those who don't because of stigma would file for reduced lunch to not have to pay the sport's fee.
Bigger problem is because the State of Va keeps reducing funding to Education in the last 15 years we have went from mid 20's to low 40's of the 50 states for funding. We could fix this shortfall by put up tolls on all of I-81 and 95 bring back the yearly car tax they cut out years back.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sat_morning_QB

Basically it falls if your on a sports VHSL Eligibility list you have to pay the $100 per sport. I don't think it would help much in the surrounding counties, because I would bet at least 45-50% of students in Lee, Wise, Scott, Dickenson counties get reduced lunch. Those who don't because of stigma would file for reduced lunch to not have to pay the sport's fee.
Bigger problem is because the State of Va keeps reducing funding to Education in the last 15 years we have went from mid 20's to low 40's of the 50 states for funding, We could fix this shortfall bay but up tolls on all of I-81 and 95 bring back the yearly car tax they cut out years back.

---

GASP! Institiute taxes to allow the dadgum government to pay for things we can all use in society??? You darned socialist/marxist/liberal pig! You hate 'Murica!!! Why are you threatening MY liberty?

Sorry...couldn't resist... :) Take that in the joking spirit it was intended...not trying to start a political flame war.

lol i don't care just my idea