Another approach to that problem is to shrink the scope of the project in order to concentrate on the kids, on those “let’s work together” principles.
Not that it’s fun or easy (or even necessarily possible at a week-long camp). It’s just that, I know what you’re talking about, and kids DO have to be taught, by repetition and example and breaking it down into tiny pieces, HOW to work together.
We’re really accustomed to imparting intellectual and skill knowledge, but emotional learning is just as important (and more difficult to come by).
And if it means they have less art at the end of the week, so be it.
I understand what you’re saying, but I think that it’s ridiculous to spend sucha huge amount per child (on insurance, uniforms, extra staff, transportation, field maintenance, etc) for such a limited group of kids.
My high school, for instance, had 1600 students. 100 of them were on the football team. They paid nothing (it was funded out of the student body treasury, not the school’s budget) for the privilege of learning teamwork and cooperation. The rest of us — choir, drama, band, orchestra, debate, chess, art, auto, and every other extracurricular activity — had to do our own fundraisers and scraped by on whatever we could afford, car-pooling to events at our own expense while the team was driven to games on a school bus. We made budgets, raised money, organized fundraisers, sold candy, and learned how to plan together. Who learned more about teamwork?
The principle is sound (“kids should learn social skills like cooperation and team responsibility!”) but in my experience, giving athletes a free ride and making everyone else pay their own way is just unevenly applying that principle. If kids should learn teamwork, it should be intra-curricular and not extra-curricular.
High school registration fees for my kids were somewhere between $200 and $300. That fee was waived for anybody who qualified for the free or reduced price lunch program. There were no extra fees for extra-curriculars. The school provided transportation for all the teams, including such things as Mathletes and the Bowling team and the Speech team. Most of the clubs and teams did fundraisers, but that covered some of the extra things, not the necessities. Drivers’ Ed cost $75 extra, but it was optional. The state requires a physical for sports every year, but the school set up a day when a doctor came in and did those for a very nominal fee. We didn’t do them there because it was about the same as the copay for our HMO.
I think a large part of the reason they didn’t charge extra for most of those things was that a majority of the school was low-income. They would have had trouble getting more money out of most of those families.
On the other hand, one of the girls on my daughter’s club volleyball team was in a somewhat more rural and smaller high school, where they were trying to come up with a plan to fund sports in general. The athletic boosters were working on fundraisers so they could keep their kids playing. I got the impression the school was considering cutting sports funding altogether, although when push came to shove I doubt they would have done it. Likely just the smaller ones, not football or basketball.
I’m in Colorado in a wealthy district (Boulder Valley) and I’d say that the $500 figure is accurate. I think I pay about $200 for the “athletic fee” and another $100 for the “spirit pack”, a collection of t-shirts and other stuff that rarely gets used. Add in a preseason tournament that requires an overnight stay somewhere and it get to $500 quickly.
This is the get-even we have to pay for having a low tax rate. The people in the Midwest and Northeat can’t believe we have to pay $500 for car registration and also have to pay for garbage pickup.
I think you’re missing a huge part of the equation. The vast majority of schools in my region of the country make a massive profit on High School Football programs and High School Basketball programs. The revenue at the stadium and gym easily covered the team’s expenses and probably funded close to 80% of the entire athletic budget, they almost certainly turned a profit when we had a playoff caliber team. Every smaller program did voluntary fundraisers at the football and basketball games to squeeze extra dollars for off-season camps, new uniforms and other non-school events from the attendees. Mind you this is suburban Chicago, and the high school football scene is solid but nothing like what it is in the rust belt and deep south.
I’d wager that football and basketball are not costing the school very much money anywhere in the country. Also, it’s worth noting that football and basketball games play a big role in many of the schools other activities. The band’s primary purpose is to perform there, as are the cheerleader and dance squads. They always honor scholastic and philanthropic award winners before and during games and often the town would use these events to recognize individuals for civic functions and accomplishments. High School football and basketball games are one of the few reliable gathering places where a captive audience is found. It’s difficult to place a price tag on the value to the town and school for a place like that and the civic pride and sense of community have long lasting benefits far beyond the school grounds.
I don’t know exactly how solvent high school programs are. College programs can do well but they also receive television revenue and can pull in crowds in the tens of thousands. High school teams rarely have either.
What our school’s football team DID have going for them, however, was a very efficient fund raising system. They had an annual golf tournament with regular participants and corporate sponsorships that brought in a BOATLOAD of cash. Now I can’t remember if this went COMPLETELY into the general athletic fund or if the football team got to keep a larger portion of their own funds, but I can tell you that it brought it more money in one day than most other groups could raising money all year. A fact that upset a lot of football boosters, that other groups made more money off the football fund raisers than their own.
My niece’s daughter (aged 10) has been playing on a semi-professional softball team for four years! It cost $350 per year just to be on the team. That doesn’t count the equipment (a $300 baseball bat!), plus clothing, shoes, and carrying case.
They are very good players and have to go to other states to play with teams that are equally good…the travel expenses are ridiculous. Her and her mother just got back from a trip to Idaho (they live in Arizona) that cost about $1500 with flight and motel and fees. That was just one tournament…they have them almost monthly.
On the upside, my niece’s daughter is an honor student (straight “A’s” in school and Student of the Year), her self-esteem is light-years above other girls at her age, she is a truly happy child and she loves the game!
Still, her mother could have bought a car and taken several trips to Europe on what it has cost her to keep her daughter playing softball. BTW, these fees are above the fees she has to pay to let her daughter play sports at her regular school.
Our football stadium seated 4500 people and was at capacity every week for 6-7 home games a year. Tickets were $6 a piece when I was there, they are probably $10 now an I know they’ve added extra seating around the 20-30 yard lines since I graduated. There’s a very brisk concession business going on as well. I figure it’s pretty conservative to estimate a annual revenue of over $250,000. The basketball program was probably even more lucrative since they would have closer to 12-14 games and hosting several regional tournaments.
I know that my school was typical for the Chicago suburban and urban areas, and my town was one of the smallest and had probably the 3rd or 4th smallest stadium in our 11 team conference. I cannot believe that the situation is any worse anywhere in the Midwest when you consider the Chicago’s depth of professional and college sports to dilute fan interest.
The implication that football is a money pit is somewhat misguided too. We got new uniforms about every 4-5 years, and the reason that uniforms were replaced was largely because so many kids chose to buy their uniforms at the end of their senior year essentially making the prospect break-even. The helmets and pads are durable and are essentially a one-time investment with a bit of upkeep. About the only thing that would be a notable added cost would be all the additional practice pads, sleds, dummies and uniforms and the storage shed for the equipment.
All in all, I’d be pretty pissed if I were a parent of a football player paying a whopping fee in order for my kid to play and then showing up to attend the game and seeing a packed stadium of paying customers not to mention the $10 I would be paying to watch my own kid.
I was near the front of the line to pay retail cost for a new jersey in exchange for my jersey- an old jersey that didn’t even have my name on it… And they were the whites my year, not even the blue-and-gray of our beloved alma mater. And I didn’t CARE.
(although the story becomes noticeably sadder when you factor in the fact that ol’ #40 is now in a landfill somewhere with the rest of Crazy Track/Poetry Girl’s HS stuff… )
My school was private- we didn’t charge admission, but the public schools in our area made their budget money or a significant portion thereof for themselves and for other programs. Football is king in southeastern PA, and games are packed.
The band plays, the cheerleaders cheer, the dance team dances, and every group, from the cheerleaders to the chess team has a booth or a raffle or a bake sale. If you want to support the extracurricular activity of your choice, you can do so in the parking lot of a southeastern PA HS football game.
As was said upthread, everybody might be in different churches on Sunday, but they’re all in the same on on Friday night (or Saturday afternoon, as the case may be).
Hell, a good friend of mine was in a ranked color guard for a school that had a horrible football team, and everyone went to see the GUARD.
Football pays for itself and others pretty well.
You know, I didn’t even think of that, but heck yeah.
And I’d be pretty pissed as a parent if I got told, “Sorry, your kid doesn’t get to learn important things like teamwork and cooperation at our school because he’s no good at football.”
Football is “free” because it makes its own money. You could say the exact same thing about drama club. Any money spent on sets or costuming can be paid for by gate receipts. Chess team is “free” because it doesn’t involve any continuing costs.
What if your kid can’t act or play chess either? You going to demand that the school cut these?
My logic goes like this: if teamwork is an important skill, it should be taught to all children, not just the ones it is profitable to teach; or failing that, teamwork should be taught to the children who most need to learn it.
Unfortunately, what comes out of the school district seems to go like this: Football is a profitable investment. We want to make money. Therefore, we will invest the money and justify the expense by calling football an important part of a child’s overall social education.
But if it’s important, I say, why is it taught to only a few? Why is athletic ability a prerequisite to learning important social skills?
I don’t object because it’s athletics. I would be perfectly happy if all children were required to be on some kind of team, athletic or otherwise, because learning teamwork is important. I object because I feel the logic is lacking.
Fish, I certainly don’t mean to come off as too aggressive, but, in the end, the calculus looks like this:
First, let’s eliminate the tax issue, because the school cannot control how much money it gets; that’s up to the people.
The school has a certain amount of money to spend. It spends the money it HAS on the non-“revenue” activities.
Football pays for itself, as does drama club and some others. Football even pays for some other activities. For example, football gives the band a place to play and an audience, saving them the money that they otherwise would have spent renting a venue and advertising.
Chess team, on the other hand, if it is a “free” activity, costs the school money every time the chess team takes a school vehicle to another school to compete.
So, one way of looking at it is that the chess team is taking food out of the football team’s mouth.
Please read my post again and note that this assumption is unfounded.
You’re missing the point. Football is not an “investment.” That money isn’t “made” by the school, it’s directly spent on other activities and resources for kids who aren’t good at football.
Revenue sports, especially on the scholastic level, aren’t taking away from anyone. They’re providing SOME an opportunity that otherwise would not exist for ANY. Is that opportunity based on skills that are not present in everyone? Yep.
BUT, is the opportunity restricted to one particular skill set? Nope. Not by a long shot.
If you’re saying that football and drama are cash cows and are used to fund other school actiities, I’d be perfectly fine with that explanation. At least it’d be honest.
Heck, you could even argue that football acts as a lure for students who might otherwise be tempted to drop out; they are drawn to play football and, as a requirement, must achieve minimum grades. That would be honest too. (Other clubs at my school had no grade requirements; that seems unfair to me to single out athletics in this way.)
I just can’t stand to see it justified as “educational” when the real issue is profit. I consider the “football is educational!” a bullshit excuse. If something is a necessary part of a child’s education then it should be in the curriculum, not outside it.
Without more information, I wouldn’t necessarily bet that football pays for itself. The vast majority of college programs run in the red. Omniscient, your suburban school might have had a huge turnout for football games, but the suburban high school my kids went to had barely anyone there. Even for Homecoming, I’m not sure they filled the seats. They didn’t have any sports that made money, instead of costing, and I’d guess that’s true for most high schools. The band performed three concerts during the school year and functioned as a pep band for basketball and marching band for football. Those last two were negligible. Nobody really cared. The Jazz and Symphonic bands were most of the focus.
I don’t think schools that revolve around football are as typical as people think, and I doubt that most football programs make any money. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be there, I just think the justifications are mistaken. Look at football as just another extra-curricular activity and you’re likely more accurate. I think they’re the driving force, and paying for themselves, not to mention other things, in very few places.
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