Plains school board refutes sports rumors

The Plains School Board met last Saturday to discuss how the new funding policy for sports would be created and to dismiss rumors about the district charging players $250 for football.

School Board Chairman Ron Holland began the discussion on the funding policy by saying that there would be no immediate decision about a formal policy and no discussion had taken place about any formal proposals.

“We’re going to form a committee for this and it will be done probably in September at the soonest and then we’re going to spend the best part of a year to get this figured out,” Holland said.

He explained that the school board’s decision to postpone a decision for a policy was based on a desire to get more information on their sports programs and to create a committee would have the time and means to fully investigate the matter over the course of a year.

“The motion to create a committee will probably come in September when we know a few more things from fund raising,” Plains superintendent Richard Magera said. He added that the school board wanted the committee to be made up of not just school board members but community members as well.

Magera also said that, while he didn’t want to cut any programs, it would be inevitable without drastic change in the district’s demographics.

“As we have declining enrollment, and it’s going to continue unless something happens around here, then we don’t need to be in 14 extracurricular activities, were going to have to consolidate that down a little bit,” Magera said.

He also added that Plains school has four more extracurricular sports programs than most class B schools. “Most class B schools in this area have 10 extra-curricular activities at the most, we’ve got 14, and that makes it a little crazy,” he said. “But we’re going to address all of that as we go through the year and then we’ll make a decision.”

The members of the school board were also concerned about rumors spreading throughout the community about the price to play each sport and assumptions about the policy.

“Nobody’s made any commitments to anything, but what happened was that at the May meeting the public had lots of comments and at the June meeting the public had lots of comments in regards to how do we continue to fund these extra-curricular activities,” board member Katy French said.

Nick Lawyer, another board member, outlined what issues the committee would address.

“The objective here is threefold: One, to develop a policy that allows the board some sort of structure to make the decision on which programs to fund and which programs not to fund,” he said. “The second issue is the responsibility issues to the individual playing that sport and third the responsibility of the team.”

Magera also wanted to set the record straight about what actions the board had taken.

“Many things get said, many things get misconstrued and forgotten, we did not eliminate funding for any program,” he explained. “We cut down the funding on those three programs [softball, crosscountry and wrestling]. Each one of them has $6,000. That’s what the board approved.”

Two community members and parents, Sandy Thompson and Polly Cavill, expressed their concern about a pay to play system, a topic discussed at the last meeting. The policy would place some of the burden of funding on athletes and parents.

“I just want to make sure that in any decision that the board makes, you’re representing the majority of the community and the majority of this community is very low income,” Cavill said to the board.

Thompson followed Cavill, speaking about the many programs in Plains that already have a pay to play type of system.

“During summer we have pay to play softball, there’s pay to play soccer, there’s pay to play swim team and you know even though our kids have always wanted to do some of those sports we had to tell them no,” Thompson said.

French said that the pay to play idea was an idea that the eventual committee would be investigating but restated Holland’s comments that nothing official has been decided upon. She also said that if a pay to play concept was adopted it would not necessarily be placed entirely upon the athlete but might be placed upon teams instead.

Rus Heward, the girl’s softball coach, agreed with this idea and felt that the fundraising might also help a team build camaraderie while learning responsibility at the same time.

“There’s plenty of things that can be done in this community that can be done as a team to raise money and I don’t think individuals have to pull that money out of their own pockets,” Steward said.

By the end of the discussion, Holland said that a committee would be formed and encouraged community members to apply for the openings. French agreed with Holland and was enthusiastic about taking a proactive approach to the funding policy.

“I think that’s where we are, it’s time to form a committee and talk to other schools and find out what there doing and see what makes sense,” French said.