On Real Sports with Bryant Gumble this week (on HBO), in addition to a very moving story about Nick Adenhart, there is a story about one of our local school districts in suburban Columbus where a failed tax levy in August led to the elimination of all sports and, in fact, all extracurricular activities. It is certainly a major discussion in this neck of the woods, since there are 4 high schools in the district, most with extremely strong sports programs -- and now nothing. They lock the school buildings at 3:30 every afternoon.

There are a couple of other districts around here where they kept the programs, but charge obscenely high "pay to play" fees -- some as high as $800 per sport. Our district also has a levy on the ballot on Tuesday and even if it passes, they are talking about raising pay-to-play from $125 per sport to closer to $400.

I was wondering what the situation is where you all live?

Welcome back!

lhpx2 - welcome back and thanks for starting a topic!

I believe our school system is pay to play (p2p) for all activities including band, drama club, etc.

Our p2p started several years ago when our school district ran into financial troubles that they have since recovered from. I believe the number for our district is $250 for the first activity. A lessor amount is charged for follow-on activities for students who participate in multiple activities. I think there is an upper capped amount of $400 or $500 dollars for students participating in multiple activities.

One of the school districts just north has cut out middle school sports.

I believe the only sport that kids pay for at our HS is Ice Hockey(ice time).

If I understand correctly, a few years ago a 1% income tax was levied half goes to the township, half to the school district.

Having two active kids in the public school, I don't mind, but there are a lot of people
who are not happy with it.

As long as they continue to offer a lot of opportunities to the kids, I am fine with the tax.

When my son was in middle school he played on a travel team out of the Lehigh Valley that started play in April since middle school baseball in the area did not exist. In the Boston, MA area many of the schools are charging a lot of money to play high school sports. Football and hockey costs $800-900 at some schools.

Our school district has a one time $50 activity fee. After paying almost 10K a year in property tax I'd be ticked if I had to pay another 1K plus for my kids to play sports.

Hey lhp!!

My area is pay to play. The school system doesn't fund sports or other activities such as band. Now, with that being said, the "pay" part can almost always be done through various fundraising opportunities offered by the sport. However, we had a big issue here in Lexington and honestly I'm not sure what became of the situation. It was announced by IRS that the "income" you were receiving doing fundraising and that counted against your kid's activity would be taxed. Since my kids are now out of the school system, I haven't kept close tabs on what happened with those opportunities. Baseball use to cost me $600 in ads to sell/pay and another $600 to pay or work in bingo (that was the regular spring season). It was worth every penny too!!