43
Poland Schools drop fees for athletics, band
Pay to Participate was enacted in 2012
By Brian Dzenis
POLAND
Poland’s Board of Education has voted to get rid of athletic fees to participate in high school and middle school athletics as well as band in Monday night’s meeting.
The fees were $100 at the high school level and $50 at the middle school level.
“With all of the work we’ve done in the past few years of right-sizing the district — like closing facilities to better match our enrollment — we’ve got our financial house in order,” Poland BOE president James Lavorini said. “As a result, we’re able to eliminate these fees.”
The fees — known as the Pay to Participate program — were instituted in 2012 in response to the school district’s financial issues at the time and years of not seeing levees passed. Other cuts were made, such as eliminating elementary school specialists such as art, music and physical education teachers. At the time, the fee was $200 per sport and was reduced two years later.
“As our financial picture got better, we’ve started bringing those things back,” Lavorini said. The athletic fees are one of those last pieces that were enacted back then.”
Recently, the district collected $65,000 from Pay to Participate. Lavorini wasn’t on the school board when Pay to Participate was enacted, but said he recalled as a parent in the district that there were some complaints, but those had tailed off after the first year.
The first school year with no athletic fees begins this fall.
“We’re excited to be able to do this. Hopefully we won’t have to enact anything like this in the near future,” Lavorini said. “We’ve taken the steps to not only get ourselves in the right financial condition we need to be in and to keep us there for the next several years.”
In other news from Monday’s BOE meeting, football coach Ryan Williams had his contract renewed for the 2019-20 school year. Williams is entering his fourth season in charge of the Bulldogs coming off a 6-4 campaign. Williams is 18-13 as Poland’s head coach.