Trustees approve pay-to-play plan for students

Annual fees kick in this fall at Flathead High School

Flathead High School students will begin paying to play this fall.

That's the vote from the District 5 school trustees Tuesday night.

In a move designed to help with the startup of an activities program at Glacier High and encourage junior varsity students to stay involved as they move into the upper grades, the school board approved a financial plan that will charge students to participate in sports, competitive music, speech and debate, and similar school activities.

By beginning this school year, the fees will help pay for equipment and other essentials needed before fall 2007, when the new high school and renovated middle school open.

It's a three-part plan:

-Students will pay $40 annually for the first Montana High School Association-sanctioned activity in which they participate, and $30 for each subsequent activity. Music, speech and debate, and other will be included only if they are competitions sanctioned by the association.

An activity ticket is covered by the annual fee, allowing admittance to all activities for the year. Students not participating in activities can buy activity tickets for $20.

A family fee cap is set at $170. Fee waivers will be available to ensure all interested students can participate.

-Meals during one-day trips no longer will be paid for by the school, but the students staying overnight will get an $18 daily allowance on the second and successive days. They will have meal allowances, too, at all post-season MHSA-sanctioned events.

-Students will pay no more than $25 for spirit packs, or practice gear that often includes T-shirts, shorts and items specific to the activity.

All trustees agreed that instituting the activity fee was the right thing to do.

Not only does nearly every other Class AA school in Montana have a similar plan, but it also has become a financial necessity in Kalispell.

But the third point in the plan went against the grain for Trustee Mary Ruby.

"I can't support the spirit pack," she told her colleagues. It is too big of a financial burden to add that to the $40 per-student fee, plus a season pass for other family members, she said.

"I feel like that's another added cost to a family. It's too expensive with the kid and the mom and the dad and (two or three) other kids, plus the $25 spirit pack."

Trustee Brad Walterskirchen said he sympathizes with her concern but thinks it's the only option.

"Everyone else charges," he said, and though that alone does not justify the fee, "it's simply a sign of the times. If you want to do something, you've got to pay to do it."

He said money would be available in the school budget for those who have the drive to participate but truly cannot afford to play.

"Yes," Ruby countered, "but I hope we would not have to always do what everybody else is doing."

"It's not that we're doing this because everyone else is," Trustee Tony Dawson said, "but because we're offering a great deal to students."

Trustee Eve Dixon suggested, and her fellow trustees agreed to, including season admittance to activities at both Flathead and Glacier high schools when a student pays a single activity fee at either school.

They did, however, draw the line at a suggestion to extend that to the community.

"We always knew that cost for duplication of activities would be the 800-pound gorilla" when discussion started on building a second high school, Trustee Bill Sutton said. "But we can show the community we are helping to support the costs by asking the kids to pay."

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com