No pay, no game

Parents, athletic director hope athletic fees will be scrapped in the future.

Making the team involves more than ability at Cape Girardeau Central High School. Students have to pay to play.

Some parents and even the school's athletics director want to scrap the pay-to-play fee.

Parents say the fee adds to the hundreds of dollars they spend on equipment, meals and lodging for their children to participate in team sports and other extra-curricular activities.

Central High School students are charged a $40 fee to play sports and to participate in other activities such as cheerleading, dance, debate and scholar bowl.

Students who are involved in two sports or activities must pay $80, but the fee is capped at $100 per student, meaning families with two siblings playing three sports each would have to pay $200.

The school charges the fee for Missouri State High School Activities Association-sanctioned competitions.

A financial crisis prompted the school board to begin charging the fee last fall despite opposition from some parents who said it placed a hardship on low-income families.

In its first year, it generated $24,910. The money goes into the school district's general fund.

"I don't think it's right," said Jimmy White whose son, Jimmy White Jr., plays football for Central.

Jimmy White said his son played football and basketball last year. The family had to come up with $80.

High school football this fall is costing the White family another $40. That doesn't even count the cost of shoes. Students have to buy their own athletic shoes.

Families also have to provide health insurance for their sons and daughters who participate in sports, school officials said.

Don Beckham's twin sons, Trevor and Trenton, play soccer at Central High. While he can afford the fee, he doesn't like it.

He said other parents feel the same way.

Last year, the Beckham family paid $80 for Trevor to play soccer and basketball and $40 for Trenton to play soccer.

But the fee, he said, is just the beginning.

"If you have a child involved in sports at Cape Central, that $40 is the least amount you pay," Beckham said.

He said parents end up shelling out hundreds of dollars in sports-related expenses such as the cost of hotel rooms when there are overnight tournaments and the cost of meals.

"The soccer parents bought new uniforms this year," he said. Parents also maintained the soccer field this summer.

He wishes the fee revenue would go directly back into athletics rather than into the district's general fund. "It goes into the black hole of the school budget," said Beckham.

Mark Ruark, athletics director at Cape Girardeau Central High School, said the fee adds to families' financial burden.

Ruark wants the district to drop the pay-to-play requirement if the district can afford it. Improving school finances could make that possible, he said.

"I think we do have kids who don't play because they don't have the money to pay the participation fee," he said.

But he said that's an assumption on his part. "I haven't had a specific parent calling up and saying my kid is not playing because of the participation fee," Ruark said.

At least 300 students participate in sports and other fee-levied activities each school year, he estimated.

Students in the high school's marching band don't pay a fee. School officials said that's because it counts as an academic class where students receive a grade.

Boosters, teachers, high school staff members and other parents have helped out low-income students by donating money to pay the participation fee, Ruark said.

Donations paid the fee for 25 student athletes this fall.

School officials said those students qualified as low-income students under the federal free-lunch program.

Some low-income families, whose children qualify for free school lunches, still pay the activity fee rather than depend on charity, officials said.

Ruark contends that some students aren't aware that they could receive financial help to play sports or participate in other after-school activities. Those students, he said, don't even try out for any of the high school's 18 varsity sports.

Ruark said he doesn't want to exclude any students from such extracurricular activities.

School finances have improved over the past year. If that continues, Ruark said he hopes the school board will scrap the fee.

"Any time we can remove a financial burden from the parents and participants, that is what we should do," he said.

Students in the Jackson and Scott City school districts don't have to pay a fee to play sports or participate in other extra-curricular activities.

Jackson school officials said they don't know of any other school district in the area that charges such a fee.

Steve Trautwein, president of the Cape Girardeau Board of Education, said the board would listen to any formal request by school administrators to scrap the fee.

But so far that hasn't happened.

"We have not talked about revisiting any specific issues associated with the budget cuts of last year," Trautwein said.

Assistant superintendent Rob Huff served as director of finance for the school district when the fee was implemented as part of a number of cost-cutting moves.

"For me, that was one of the toughest ones simply because it directly affected students," he said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123