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BOE to decide on activity fees
POLAND
The board of education will have a special meeting Thursday to make a decision about instituting activity fees for the 2011-12 school year.
The board approved all items on its agenda Monday night except a motion to place swimming back to club-sport status beginning next school year, with the board to pay only coaches’ salaries, and to charge an activity fee for grades seven through 12.
The activity fee would be $75 per high-school sport and $50 per middle-school sport. Families qualifying for the federal government free-lunch program would be exempt from the activity fee, the agenda stated.
Superintendent Robert Zorn said he has listened to the board’s discussion and prepared three options, whittled down from the six the board had been considering. They are charge a fee only for athletics, charge a fee for athletics, clubs and band, or do not charge a fee.
Zorn said he has urged the board to make a decision before August, which is when fall sports and marching band practice begin. The board does not have a July meeting scheduled.
Much of the debate, Zorn said, has centered on charging a transportation fee for marching band.
“Under Ohio law, you can’t just flat out charge somebody for band per se” because it is an academic course, which is why the board is considering a transportation fee as proposed by the band director, Zorn said.
At previous school board meetings, parents have voiced concern that they already pay an extra cost for their children to participate in marching band.
Band students have to rent their uniforms from the Poland Band Parents at a cost $25 for the school year and $10 for dry-cleaning, Zorn said, noting that band uniforms cost about $400 each.
“It’s not payable to the [district]. We don’t collect that money and we don’t touch it,” Zorn said.