<p>Yes, sports need to be there, and families whose kids participate in them will have to foot the bill just like the rest of us who decided not to ask elderly and families with kids at public schools to pitch in for sports at private schools / clubs, piano lessons, figure skating, art lessons, gymnastics, better houses, going out for dinner, designer clothe, prom dresses, weddings and all items that we decided absolutely needed in our lives.</p>
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<p>It took our school district almost 25 years to pass a referendum to build a new high school! In the old building, we were 300+ over capacity and the halls were only 7 feet wide with lockers on both sides! 900 students in this building! Now people complain because it cost $35 million to build but guess what… if they had done it even 10 years ago, it wouldn’t have cost anywhere close! It is quite a beautiful school now that they finally did get it passed and built…</p>
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<p>Somebody please call the WAAAAAAAMbulance…</p>
<p>“It took our school district almost 25 years to pass a referendum to build a new high school!” - it took well over 100 years for D’s school to build a new building, they did OK with old one, crowded, w/o airconditionning. They have waited until they had funds without asking public to foot the bill. So? Admittance to school was still selective and kids continue driving there on a daily basis from neghboring state. Academics win, no matter how you look at it. They have some athletic teams, do not have others, some people watch games every week. others do not, very secondary consideration. The school is the most expensive in our area and twice as expensive as religious private schools.</p>
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<p>Ok, this is a reasonable argument that I can actually respond to without getting a spike in blood pressure.</p>
<p>What I have observed is that booster organizations for music and sports are already doing more and more fundraising. There are some other kinds of economizing that can take place. Parents already pay fees, and can probably pay some more. [Please show me that school, referenced earlier, where the school pays ALL the EC expenses. I don’t believe it.] </p>
<p>However, what I cannot bear to see (and taxguy also suggested this) is that some kids just might not be able to participate. Why can’t I bear it? Because the kids who can’t afford the fees may just be the kids for whom these activities are the most crucially needed. These activities are all that keep some kids in school. It would just be too cruel.</p>
<p>Our booster organizations currently cover the kids whose parents can’t pay the fees.</p>
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<p>Absolutely.</p>
<p>And since you mention booster clubs, it brings home the point that many parents are indeed already working hard to help provide these opportunities for the kids.</p>
<p>"It took our school district almost 25 years to pass a referendum to build a new high school! "</p>
<p>Its not about facilities. Strong academics trump pretty new buildings every time. Lots of charter, parachial and private schools have proven that</p>
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<p>You can’t have strong academics with 30+ students in a classroom designed for 15 with the students sitting basically on top of each other. Oh and let’s not forget the 30+ students who range anywhere from the 3rd grade level all the way to the 12th grade level because you can’t forget public schools must accomodate all students including those with learning disabilities.</p>
<p>“You can’t have strong academics with 30+ students in a classroom designed for 15 with the students sitting basically on top of each other.” - Yes, you can. That is what they have in other countries with the results that the most expensive and best schools in the USA (including awesome school that my D attended) are not achieving anywhere near and it is shown on international competitions. Money is not everything when it comes to kids’ education.</p>
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<p>This is a most excellent point. One of the most crucial “everythings” is strong parental support for the importance of educational attainment. (Such as is displayed by many Asian families, in my experience.)</p>
<p>One of the biggest problems faced in public education nowadays is dealing with the many students who do not have that push from home for educational attainment. Exclusive and expensive private schools (in expensive, high-tax neighborhoods 
) generally have students whose parents value education for its own sake, so these schools do not face this teaching impediment, as public schools do. Thus, exclusive and expensive private schools may not “need” social inducements such as EC’s for the purpose of providing a sense of accomplishment and camaraderie to their students, in order to keep them in school. Society benefits from students who will graduate, get jobs, and contribute to the tax system for the rest of their lives, not be a drain.</p>
<p>Some may not find this argument convincing, but I sincerely do because I see it in action.</p>
<p>Skyhook, agree 100%. Actually was thinking about including Asian kids example in my previous post. They are successful no matter what school they go to. Instilled work ethic from very young age and high level of parents support.</p>
<p>It depends a lot of who those 30 students are. If, as in many school systems, there is some tracking and the 30 students are all taking AP courses, there’s no problem. But if it’s 30 kids who haven’t done well, with a new teacher, and nine of them have learning disabilities or don’t speak English at home, it’s not going to go very well.</p>
<p>Not speaking English at home actually is a very good thing. That makes them to have another language. Very hard to accomplish, almost impossible. Not speaking English at home does not make them bad students at all, teaching them at school in their own language does. They have to be thrown in English speaking environment without any help, it does pay off in a long run, not too long at all though. Average 10 years old will speak without accent, read and write English in approximately 6 months if he has no help at school. It is much longer and more painful when help is provided.</p>
<p>This is a very interesting topic, and I really feel for the kids - especially the seniors.</p>
<p>I have always had to pay for my kids band/sports at public school. At around $300-$750 each for each activity (Plus equipment/instruments/etc)! I have a friend who paid $1400/yr for her son to be in marching band at another public school in the district. </p>
<p>My sister, who lives in OH, was just telling me that if their levy doesn’t pass they will have 40 kids per class in elementary next year, but the school will still cover the majority of costs for ECs. Seems to me that, as a parent, I’d rather make the choice to scrimp somewhere at home to fund my kids interests than to be forced to make my 3rd grader share a teacher with 39 other students.</p>
<p>I’d agree with Kerrbo too if those were my only options. My concern as a taxpayer is whether or not I believe the district is short of dough based on mismanagement or circumstances completely beyond their control. I’d like to see more documentation of the board and the admin scrimping before I am expected to pony up more cash.</p>
<p>*Not speaking English at home actually is a very good thing. *</p>
<p>FOr parents who do not have English, it is very difficult to establish communication with the school. They may be intimidated and don’t know where to get information, they may misunderstand the information they do get & they may be treated by district administration like they are unintelligent, much in the same way that people assume those in wheelchairs are also deaf.
:rolleyes:</p>
<p>I feel like there’s too many incompetent politicians in office. Our school district had very similar problems, and they fired people and restricted the system and managed to salvage the year (They have speculated not opening schools earlier because they didn’t have the money). This is unacceptable to me. The arts are just as important as the academics.</p>
<p>It isn’t original, but my 2 mottos this yr:
“Is your representative representing you?”
and
“Old bums out, new bums in”</p>
<p>What happens to people when you take away what they live for?</p>
<p>To all of you who speak about a work ethic, those kids live for their future opportunities. </p>
<p>What if they were told that their job would be decided by a completely random lottery? They might become the CEO of a well-established company or they might become a sanitation engineer, no matter how they did in school or even what school they went to.</p>
<p>Would they really work as hard for their grades? Some of them, the richer ones, would bribe their way into their dream jobs. What happens to the rest of them? </p>
<p>And then our next argument becomes the inevitable destruction of society under such a system–talent stops caring (As an earlier poster implied, read Atlas Shrugged).</p>
<p>Now to relate all this to extracurriculars.</p>
<p>Cutting extracurriculars does the same thing. As many other posters have mentioned, a lot of these kids try at school only so they can qualify for their sports. What happens when they lose their reason to try? It’s much easier to drop out.</p>
<p>And then the kids who cared about academics to begin with stop caring–whenever competition is reduced, quality is reduced. And you return to “talent stops caring”.</p>
<p>You’ve just told the “sports kids” it’s not their talent but their money that will allow them to play their sports, just as you hypothetically told the “work ethic” kids it’s not their talent but their money that will give them the future they want.</p>
<h2>For those of you who advocate “pay to participate” with boosters supporting kids who cannot pay, what happens if nobody can really pay?</h2>
<p>Of course all of this is hypothetical, a consequence of what would happen if this spread throughout America.</p>
<p>Yes, the funding for some sports needs to be reduced. Yes, a bureaucracy is inherently wasteful. Yes, schools’ primary purpose should be to prepare their graduates for life. Yes, extracurriculars teach important life lessons academics cannot. Yes, extracurriculars are necessary in schools.</p>
<p>I live in Ohio and our district cut extracurriculars (sports, clubs, marching band) AND bussing if you lived within a 2 mile proximity of the school and for all high schoolers a few years back because the levies wouldn’t pass.</p>
<p>Eventually the ECs were reinstated under pay to play on a tier system and bussing was reinstated after the next levy passage. </p>
<p>We made national news because a kid in my daughter’s class was driving his tractor to school. It did get very dangerous with kids walking on roads with 55 mph speed limits and no berms or sidewalks.</p>
<p>[toledoblade.com</a> --](<a href=“The Blade”>The Blade)</p>
<p>The effect on our athletics was many good athletes left and went to play for other districts.</p>
<p>i feel bad for the students. ECs kept me goin through high school … i wouldn’t be surprised if the morale of the school nosedived.</p>