Marblehead Athletic Fees Could Rise 371% Under Reduced-Services Budget
MARBLEHEAD, MA — A reduced-services budget could increase the amount of money families would have to pay for their children to play sports and join extracurricular clubs in Marblehead Public Schools by between 235 and 371 percent under three proposals the School Committee heard during its Thursday meeting.
The increased fees would be required to pay coaches and supervisors and offset a $170,000 funding gap that would be created if the schools are forced to implement $2.3 million in overall cuts as part of a potential reduced-services budget. The district has been asked to prepare contingencies for a reduced-services budget, as well as a level-services budget that would keep staffing and funding levels the same from the current year.
Currently, user fees pay for 50 percent of coaching and supervising budgets for sports and other extracurricular school clubs and activities. Under the reduced-services budget numbers presented at the meeting, families of participating students would have to supplement the entirety of that budget.
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“I have said all along that I am not going to cut educators in front of kids for sports,” School Committee Chair Sarah Fox said. “But sports and activities get them in the door and they open opportunities for kids. And I really worry that we talk about the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion and then this is putting a gigantic equity barrier there.”
Under the current fee structure, students can play unlimited high school sports for $495 and middle school sports for $220 with a family cap of $800. There are also fees for playing high school club sports, flag football and middle school intramural sports.
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Under the first proposed reduced-services option presented, the unlimited fee would increase to $1,340 per student and $2,680 per family.
Under the second option, the first sport would be $575, the second sport would be $495 and the third sport would be $420 per student each year with a family cap of $2,980.
Under the third option, there would be a tier of sports with “expensive” sports such as hockey and football being $950 and $900, respectively, and sports such as tennis that require fewer resources being $550. The family cap for that proposal would be $3,768.
“We went through lots of iterations of this,” Interim Superintendent Theresa McGuinness said. “None of it feels good or feels right. But faced with $2.3 million (in reductions) fees were an area that our town administrator asked us to look at across all departments in the town and this was the biggest one.”
Select Board member Jennifer Schaeffner sought clarification on exactly why the increase came in so high to meet the potential funding deficits ahead of the upcoming budget hearing, while Fox urged parents to voice their concerns on the fees and any other proposed cuts at the hearing before the budget requests are voted on and moved through the Finance Committee and on to town meeting for approval.
“It really just hammers home that we have to fund our schools,” Fox said. “We are funding a public education facility. The pay-to-learn, the pay-to-play, the pay-to-have-access-to-things-in-a-public-setting needs to end.
“We need to pay as a town to fund this stuff.”
(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at [email protected]. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)
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