Correspondence

I had a few short comments in Saturday's Herald Newspaper concerning the budget.  I received this correspondence related to the article, not necessarily to my comments.

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Mr. Vining ,

 

In your comments , a couple of things came to mind. This district is awash with quite a huge amount of Administrative Jobs and positions that in tough times totally are befuddling. Middle Schools have School principals for Grades 6 thru Grade 12 ? Each Grade principal is treated like a CEO with Secretaries and staff.  I remember a time when each School had one principal and maybe an assistant. We have quite a bit of paying going for positions that have no direct impact on the day to day educating of the children. Each Grade has Guidance counselor in High School and some middle schools.

 

I can tell you that when it comes to MINOR FEMALE dominated sports we as parents are already paying quite some amounts in fees , not including the outside professional coaching we pay for to make up for the lack of professional certified coaching that the Schools currently provide. Cheerleaders parents if you would like a breakdown, I can get you one,  pay into the Thousands of dollars per year to represent the High Schools and in most cases have coaches that are not UCA or NCA certified ( just a teacher who cheered a long time ago) by the way there are 8000 Division 1 and Division 2 Athletic Scholarships for Cheerleaders. Private coaches usually have better inside track and teach the skills the Athletes need to get those so the High School Cheerleading is basically  a way to fill time. Pay 3 times the $1500 dollars that High School cost for Private Gym and proper instruction.

 

If you want to take another take Swimming parents pay for everything, suits, goggles, snack fund plus pay  admission.  The schools supply a 3 dollar cap and 4 year old ill fitting warm-ups  that are turned back in each year. Parents pay $20 to attend and become certified to officiate at the meets to be the starter and the judges. Parents are the timers at each meet also.

This sport also does not have USA level 1 ,2 or 3 certified and trained coaches it has whatever gets left over or can be cajoled into attempting to watch the lanes or used to swim long time ago.

This sport also have between 12,000 and 15,000 division 1 and 2 scholarships available.

 

Those parents that want to give their Children a chance to excel in these Sports usually pay for private team training and outside team coaching between $2000, to $5000 per year  and  these athletes swim in USA sanctioned swimming meets that is where the coaches can view their times on Official web -sites  where professional officials referee the meets.( I know I am a USA Swimming official).

 

So as you contemplate the charging of fees for athletic participation , contemplate that you will most likely end almost all minor sports at a High School level. These sports are already extremely poorly coached just a time filler for the serious participants and if you add fees without upgrading the type coaches you have thrown out there the athletes you think that will pay to play for the school will choose to spend their dollars in the private sector for professional coaching.( High School give the professional coaching to Football, Basketball and in some cases Soccer and Baseball. ( Charge them to participate.)  You are in many ways I am quite sure totally unaware how much money minor sports parents already PAY. )

 

Not only that  the concessions at the major sports is manned by parents of all the minor sports for the crumbs that they can get from booster clubs $20 an hour for their sports budget. What really gets me is one less administrator can fund most of these minor sports for an entire school considering how much we already pay

 

Or if you want to look at the programs lets take a look at coaching staff's equipping and busses for 9th grade Football, Basketball, Baseball and Soccer / Why not say we can't have these back in the 70'S when I was in High School we had no 9th grade sports. 9th and 10th graders were a Junior Varsity  period so you either mad Varsity or JV  no 9th grade separatism.

Look at Middle School they have already combined cheer leading for 7th and 8th grades , Why not combine football and Basketball and Volleyball to 1 team 7th and 8th grade best play or is it the sexist view we can combine the girls to save cost but not the boys?

Currently the middle schools have either dropped cheerleading or have 1 squad for both grades.

 

So while you are tossing around these things toss over in your head , the entire district outside of the schools knows that We never cut or combine administrative positions ( at the district and at the school level we have overhead for everything in duplicate) and now we will  think about a charge for the female , and so called minor sports parents who already shoulder most of the cost of the sport.

 

What you have is a catch 22 if you charge you better upgrade what you provide or everyone will just kill the high school sport and take it to the private sector where they can actually get what they pay for in an athletic program. You should really do some homework on what some parents and boosters already pay both public and private on sports and coaching and program.

Except for the majors sports you provide very little as it is.

 

Best Regards,