Should Ohio cut pay-to-participate fees?

COLUMBUS – Barbara Stephenson worries her grandson won’t be able to play football when he reaches high school.

She’s concerned not because her grandson isn’t good enough or isn’t enthusiastic about the sport, but because she can’t afford the higher participation fee.

“I’m not going to be able to afford it,” Stephenson said. “There’s just no way. So he’s going to have to find odd jobs and work his way through. That’s the only way we can.”

West Muskingum Local Schools, where Stephenson’s two grandsons attend middle school and play sports, is the only school district in Muskingum County to charge pay-to-participate fees. The fee is $100 per sport for middle school students and $250 per sport for high school students. There’s a $1,000 cap for families at the high school level.

Superintendent William Harbron said school officials will adjust fees based on what families can afford and scholarships are offered. Still, he said the fees are necessary to keep athletics running in the district.

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted and Sen. Cliff Hite, both former football players, want that to change. The Republican officials want to ax pay-to-participate fees at schools statewide, saying the money bars children from low- and middle-income families from playing music, participating in sports and joining clubs.

Husted was inspired to tackle pay-to-participate fees after reading “Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis” by Port Clinton native Robert Putnam. The book chronicles barriers children face to finding jobs and living successful lives, including the reduction in extracurricular activities.

Husted said he wasn’t the best student, but he excelled in sports, and that motivated him to do well in both settings.

“It was athletics that kept me involved in academics,” Husted said. “We wouldn’t think of charging for biology class. We shouldn’t charge to play the game of football.”

Hite, R-Findlay, also knows the benefits of athletics and music firsthand. His father taught music, and Hite played football at Findlay High School.

“If I had had to pay, I would have liked to think that my mom and dad would have come up with the money, but I don’t know,” Hite said. Later, as a football coach, Hite recalls watching how participation fees decimated opponents’ programs.

Who pays?

School administrators, coaches and lawmakers largely agree eliminating fees on extracurricular activities is a great idea. But who will foot the bill?

Husted wouldn’t say whether lawmakers would chip in money to cover costs or whether the school districts would be on the hook to find new money. He just knows pay-to-participate fees hurt children and need to be removed.

“In the end, that’s what needs to stop,” Husted said. “There are dozens of ways to go about doing that. I’m open to them all.”

Most school officials don’t want to charge students fees to participate in athletics, but they must pay for academics first, said Damon Asbury, director of legislative services for the Ohio School Boards Association.

A voluntary survey conducted by the Ohio High School Athletic Association found 46 percent of schools in Ohio levy at least some fees to participate in athletics, according to responses from 471 schools in June 2014. That’s compared to 32.5 percent during the 2004-05 school year, according to responses from 490 schools. OHSAA has more than 800 member schools.

“It is just like anything else: More schools are searching for dollars to fund them,” OHSAA spokesman Tim Stried said. “The assumption is that it will continue to rise.”

Fees vary from school to school. Athletes in northeast Ohio paid the most, with an average fee of $153, and those in southeast Ohio paid the least, with an average fee of $66, according to the survey.

“Sometimes, hard choices have to be made,” said Asbury, a former superintendent whose district had fees to participate in sports. “Were it not for pay-to-play revenues, they might not be able to offer the full range of sports that they do.”

Making it work without fees

Bucyrus City Schools used to charge pay-to-participate fees but the school board nixed them in recent years, Superintendent Kevin Kimmel said. The fee was $60 per sport up to $240 per school year to participate in extracurricular programs.

“We don’t want to turn any kids away because of the financial condition they are in,” Kimmel said. “(Activities) help develop a well-rounded student.”

Now, athletics are paid for with income from tickets, extra money from golf and cross country invitationals sponsored by local civic organizations and general revenue money, which goes toward salaries and some transportation. Parents pay for athletic shoes, traveling to watch the game and other expenses.

“From our standpoint, we would like to limit the expenses our families have to pay,” Kimmel said.

Still, Kimmel would like the decision to charge pay-to-participate fees to be a local one — not simply eliminated by state lawmakers.

Four school districts in Ross County have pay-to-participate fees — Chillicothe, Zane Trace, Paint Valley and Southeastern. Paint Valley’s is designated for transportation costs, while Southeastern’s is a $15 annual insurance fee.

Chillicothe Superintendent Jon Saxton said he feels the school board has been judicious in setting what it calls a transportation and activity fee.

“We have worked with families, we have established payment plans, we’re doing all we can to be respectful of the community’s needs,” said Saxton, adding that there are no instructional fees charged in the district for grades K through 8 and what he termed a relatively inexepensive high school fee. “We’ve tried to do the best we can to manage our funds so we can be respectful of that challenge for families.”

Having said that, he also noted that a ban on pay-to-participate fees would have an impact because there are not a lot of other avenues that can be pursued to make up for revenue lost to such a ban.

Hite is hosting meetings in Findlay, Cleveland and Dayton to listen to school officials, students and others affected by pay-to-participate fees. Feedback from the meetings could lead to legislation to cut or reduce fees statewide.

Any change would need money to replace what’s lost in fees, Pickerington Local Schools Treasurer Timothy Jenkins said at Hite’s first meeting in Columbus.

“We are on tight budgets and folks in the community don’t always believe that their property taxes should go up when their kids don’t necessarily participate,” Jenkins said.

Sports editor Henry Conte and reporters Eric Lagatta and Brandon Hannahs contributed to this article, as did Gazette reporter Chris Balusik.