Pay to play would hurt Elyria students

Elyria Schools should sideline the idea of forcing students to pay to participate in extracurricular activities. Implementing pay to play, as the concept is more popularly known, wouldn't fix the district's financial problems, but it would lead to lower participation in sports and clubs. Hardest hit would be students whose parents couldn't or wouldn't pay for them to continue doing the extracurricular activities that are central to a rewarding and educational school experience. The kids who remained also would lose out on opportunities, including making new friends and competing at higher levels. Elyria Schools finds itself in the unfortunate position of considering pay to participate because it is in dire financial straits. After voters rejected two new property tax levies last year, the district had no choice but to make $9 million worth of painful cuts. Among those cuts were layoffs of dozens of staff members, including teachers. (The district opted against putting a levy on the May ballot.) As our reporter Owen MacMillan noted in a story we published Friday, calls for pay to participate have come up over the years, but took on a new urgency at a February school board meeting when cuts were being discussed. The primary argument in favor of pay to participate was that the district should cut fewer teachers and instead starting charging kids for extracurriculars. Except, as Superintendent Ann Schloss and Treasurer Colleen Aholt pointed out at the time, staffing is the district's biggest expense. In order to reduce the district's budget by $9 million, the district had to cut employees. While it's true that pay-to-participate fees would bring in some money for the district, it wouldn't bring in anywhere near enough to restore staffing to pre-cut levels. In March, the district had preliminary discussions about what it would look like to charge $100 per student per sport. Schloss said at the time that charging that fee would bring in around $125,000 to $175,000 per year if all the students currently playing a sport stayed on their teams. "I can say it would probably, at the most, be half of that," she warned. Charging more might bring in more money, but, again, it also would drive some kids out of extracurriculars and limit what others could do. Even parents willing to pay for their kids to participate might have to make hard choices about what they can afford, depending on how the program works if implemented. (Some districts that have pay to participate charge a flat fee while others charge on a per-activity basis. The rates also can vary by activity.) Schloss has long worried that many Elyria families wouldn't be able to afford pay-to-participate fees. (Elyria has a poverty rate of 16.7 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By comparison, Lorain County, taken as a whole, has a poverty rate of 10.8 percent, while Ohio has a poverty rate of 12.7 percent.) Beyond the financial impact on families, extracurricular activities are vital to giving students a well-rounded education. While teaching students the skills they will need in the workplace is important, so is providing access to activities that will allow them to have rich and rewarding lives outside of work. Of course, reading, writing, arithmetic, civics, science and other core subjects should be taught, but so should electives. Those classes and extracurriculars allow students to explore interests and pursue passions that probably won't come up in, say, math class. Extracurriculars not only teach skills specific to a particular sport or club, but they also allow students to learn teamwork and build confidence. Most adults probably look back on their extracurricular activities as defining moments of their high-school experience. Schloss made a similar point last week in MacMillan's story previewing the school board meeting scheduled for Wednesday, when pay-to-participate fees will be discussed. "I feel students who are involved in extracurricular activities — whether it be choir, football, robotics, any club or team — I have always called it the fifth core, that is an important part of their school journey," Schloss said. "Obviously I have been very transparent and honest that I am worried about losing participants if they can't afford it. But that is all part of the discussion, and we are open to hearing all sides so the board can make a decision." There's nothing wrong with hearing out the community but pay to participate would hurt students far more than it would help the district's bottom line.