After-school sports and activities could be a lot pricier for some Hempfield families this school year.
The pay-to-participate fee for sports and band has increased to $100 per student for one activity, and another $75 for each additional sport or activity in which the student participates.
It used to be $75 total, which would allow students to participate in as many activities as they wanted.
The district also removed the cap of $200 per family. Now every student must pay the full fee.
The change is expected to generate an additional $25,000 for the district, which will be used to pay assistant coaches, according to Superintendent Tammy Wolicki.
It’s one of many hard choices the district made in a very tight budget year, she said.
“We made cuts in many other areas. We reduced the numbers of teachers, and support staff, and buses,” she said.
Two teachers were furloughed. A maintenance worker, a full-time secretary, five part-time secretaries and a building aide were laid off. Eight other employees retired and will not be replaced.
Real estate taxes were raised 1.25 mills, from 82.21 to 83.46.
But when the school board proposed cutting assistant coaches from the $96.9 million budget, the community decided it was a step too far, Wolicki said.
More than a dozen parents, students and community members attended a May meeting protesting the proposed coaching cuts and said they’d be willing to pay more to play if meant the coaches could stay on, Wolicki said.
As a result, supervisors voted unanimously to approve the new fee — which only applies only to sports and band, not other after-school activities, Wolicki said.
In 2017-18, about 750 Hempfield Area School District students participated in one sport, Wolicki said. There were about 250 in two sports, less than 100 in three, and eight in four.
The band had 163 members.
Jacob Tierney is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Jacob at 724-836-6646, jtierney@tribweb.com or via Twitter @Soolseem.
