Boundary schools to cut extras
When Jerry Wylie was playing football last fall, he never imagined it might be his last opportunity to compete.
But the failure of a supplemental levy last month has forced the Boundary County School District to trim $1 million from its budget. Sports will be eliminated, along with such things as student council, National Honor Society, prom and pep band.
“It’s just not good,” said Wylie, a junior at Bonners Ferry High School. “School without sports doesn’t seem right.”
If the extracurricular activities are cut, it would be the most drastic cut that state activities officials in Washington and Idaho have heard of. Bill Young, executive director of the Idaho High School Activities Association, said he knows of school districts cutting back – but never anything as grim as what’s being proposed in Boundary County.
“It happens when an override (levy) goes down,” Young said. “They have to make cuts, and usually they will cut something out of everything. But to totally take all activities away is kind of unique.”
For the first time in years, Boundary County has a shiny new high school – a gymnasium with glossy hardwood, air still rich with the smell of varnish and new plastic bleachers.
The gym was quiet Wednesday. The high-tech scoreboard was dark, and so was the 500-seat auditorium next door. Those were scenes that could become the norm.
Just days after voters rejected the levy, the district’s school principals met with district administrators to find $1 million to trim from its budget.
“We’re about to do nothing good for education,” Superintendent Don Bartling said, looking around at the long faces.
The school district is considering four proposals for cuts. Each calls for eliminating sports and extracurricular activities this fall, eliminating several jobs, cutting elective classes and closing one – if not all three – of the district’s small, rural elementary schools.
To save money, the district is considering going to a four-day school week or double-shifting. Under one plan, high school students would go to school from 6 a.m. to noon. At 12:30, junior high students would start their school day and the final bell wouldn’t ring until 6:30 p.m.
Kindergarten could be cut to just a couple of long days each week.
“The cuts will have to be made in a situation that already is frugal at best,” said John Lindberg, a school board member from Naples. “You use all kinds of adages – that there’s not fat to cut because there’s just the bone left. Now you are starting to toss away part of the skeleton.”
‘Leverage in the classroom’
In a small town like Bonners Ferry, there’s a lot of support for the home team.
“This whole town is based on sports, because there’s nothing else to look forward to,” said Shawn Nelson, a freshman at the high school. “It keeps kids out of trouble. Kids keep their grades up so they can play sports. They come to school so they can play sports.”Research says kids perform better in school when they are involved in an activity, whether it be football or speech competition, Young said.
Students involved in extracurricular activities have higher grade-point averages, fewer discipline problems, learn how to take directions and discover “there’s no substitute for hard work,” Young said. Janis Tucker, a coach and teacher at Bonners Ferry High, said sports is one of the main reasons many kids come to school.
“I think there’s leverage in the classroom when kids are involved in an activity,” Tucker said. “That’s one way to get their grades up. When they don’t have that incentive, there’s going to be a drop in academic performance.”
Tucker and others worry about how students might fill those empty hours after school if the school activities are cut.Sophomore Brec Kennedy said she’s concerned that Bonners Ferry graduates will be at a disadvantage when they apply to college – and not as well-prepared if they are accepted.Dion Wheeler, a former track coach at Lewis University in Illinois and author of the Sports Scholarship Insider’s Guide, said the elimination of sports could be devastating to star athletes.
“If they’re prospects for athletic scholarships or even roster positions for any team, it virtually ends that possibility for them,” Wheeler said. As the college application process becomes increasingly competitive, especially at private colleges and Ivy League institutions, extracurricular activities factor into the decision.
“I can’t emphasize enough how important to today’s applicants extracurricular activities are,” said Shannon Duff, founder of Collegiate Campus LLC, a consulting firm that specializes in college admissions counseling. “Restricting students’ access to these activities will place these students at a disadvantage as they apply to many selective colleges.”
Pay to play?
Families of some high school athletes are considering moving to other districts or sending athletes to live with relatives so they can continue to participate in school activities and be eligible for scholarships.
The community and Booster Club may be able to salvage the activities programs, some believe. At last week’s board meeting, coaches said they would continue coaching without pay. There’s also been talk of going to pay-to-play sports.
Tucker said pay-to-play has been attempted in the past, but only raised about $20,000 a year – a tenth of what the district estimates would be saved by eliminating the programs.
The school board has endorsed the idea of a local option sales tax to fund schools – the way Kootenai County funded jail expansion. That would require legislative action, though, and the legislative session has already wrapped up.
Idaho Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, said District 1 legislators support the idea, but bills on the topic didn’t even get a hearing in the House Revenue and Taxation Committee this session. She said it’s not likely Boundary County Schools will see aid through a local option sales tax any time soon.
Boundary County Schools are struggling with some of the same challenges as other districts throughout Idaho and across the nation – an increasing number of “unfunded mandates” under the No Child Left Behind Act.
Failure of the levy is being blamed on everything from the untimely closure of the county’s largest private employer, CEDU emotional growth schools, just days before the levy to last-minute mailings by the Boundary County Property Owners Association. The mailings criticized the district’s spending and alleged that the schools promote a “liberal agenda” that includes abortion, sodomy, gun control and gay marriage.
Lindberg said even the voters who rejected the levy will be affected by the cuts the district will be forced to make.
“It’s their offspring, their grandchildren or great-grandchildren who will be coming through a system that doesn’t meet today’s needs,” he said.