By Christopher Shaban
Staff Writer
CLAREMONT — The Claremont School Board will be investigating the costs of sports in the city and should not include a ‘Pay to Play’ scenario, according to Claremont School Board Chairman Frank Sprague.
At a recent school board meeting, the topic was raised about having non-district student participation on school teams at the Claremont Middle School that led into a deeper discussion about sports in general.
“There was an issue with a team makeup at CMS and a board member wanted to look into why this is allowed” Sprague said. There is no policy for allowing out-of-district students to play on Claremont school teams, but according to Sprague, ”an agreement was made and it has been resolved as it had been past practice.”
The school board will begin discussion on the topic later this year with an eye toward equity across all levels of education.
“We want kids to participate in sports and encourage everyone to play and do not want to eliminate kids from playing” Sprague said. “We wanted to air out all ideas and concerns and make everyone aware of how we spend taxpayer money and look at equity with not only sports teams but in music and art also.”
Locally, Hanover and Hopkinton have a Pay to Play policy while Newport toyed with the idea a few years ago but it never made it to a school board vote. “We looking into it but soon discovered that it wasn’t going to work in Newport” said Newport Athletic Director Jeff Miller.
Stevens was moved into Division 2 a few years ago after spending 10 years in Division 3. Division 2 programs prohibit eighth-graders from playing on junior varsity teams which is a feeder system for varsity teams with schools with low player participation. Many schools in Division 3 and Division 4 do not have some JV teams as schools seem to be seeing a decline in athletic participation.
One parent from outside of the city talked to about fees for participation said that her children would probably go to another district if fees were implemented.
“We already pay tuition, fund raise, purchase equipment, pay for summer camps, volunteer and more,” said the parent, who didn’t want to be identified. “If a fee was added or funding was taken away I don’t think that Claremont would be our first choice to send our kids.”
“I know first hand that some team members spend money out of their pockets,” Sprague said. “When I coached the bowling teams kids were responsible for their own bowling balls and I know other sports have expenses also that are picked up by the players and their families. Some expenses are safety related like football but a worst case scenario would be possibly have some teams require players to have their own equipment.”
“Any type of fee or Pay to Play would negatively affect Claremont” Miller said. “Some families would be fine but his is about the kid three houses down with a single parent who works two jobs and the oldest kid who plays two sports has to work at McDonald’s or Shaw’s on weekends, help take care of siblings during the week, maintain grades and participate in sports. If they had to pay than sports would be the first thing given up.”
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