It’s not a level playing field for Harvard students who want to join school sports teams. Expensive user fees have created a “bifurcated system … that works for those who can afford it” but leaves other kids on the sidelines, according to Sue Toll of Ann Lees Road at Monday’s School Committee meeting.
Toll was speaking for the Athletic Advisory Committee, a volunteer group of parents, coaches, and school officials that is in its second year seeking to resolve sports issues in Harvard.
While nearly all Massachusetts towns have user fees for their sports programs, Toll said Harvard is the only town that does not include any of the operating costs for athletics in its school budget. Harvard is also alone in having no cap on the total cost a family might have to pay in user fees.
User fees vary from one sport to another. According to the school website, fees in this fall season range from $260 for cross country to $325 for varsity soccer and $360 for golf. With three sports seasons during the school year, costs can mount up quickly for a family with several children. And those fees do not cover uniforms or equipment, as several parents reminded the School Committee during public comment time. The only part of the sports program that is covered in the school budget is the salary for the part-time athletic director.
Some students don’t even ask about playing sports, Toll said, because they do not want to burden their families with the costs. While overall sports participation in Harvard is high, Toll said she personally knows of kids who don’t sign up or who play fewer sports because of the cost.
“We want to restore some equity,” Toll said.
The only way to make sports available to all students on an equal basis, the advisory committee said, is to make the program part of the school budget. The committee asked that $270,000—or about 2 percent of the current school budget—be added to cover the athletic program’s operating costs, including coaches’ salaries, transportation, fees for referees and officials, dues for the various league memberships, and uniforms and equipment.
In response to questions from the School Committee, Toll made clear that this amount would cover only sports teams based entirely at the Bromfield School. It would not include sports shared with other schools, such as crew, football, or ice hockey.
School Committee member Nancy Lancellotti asked the advisory committee members if they had considered any option other than full funding through the schools. Toll responded that the School Committee was better placed to suggest other options because “you know the budget better than we do.”
“How much would make a difference?” School Committee Chairwoman SusanMary Redinger asked. She noted that an override seeking money for the sports program had failed about nine years ago. And she said that the School Committee wants to find an equitable way of dealing with fees for buses and for kindergarten extended days as well as sports.
