posted
I think it's fair to note that the reason athletics seem to never lack for money is because they receive most of their funding from parents and the community. Where I work and where my kids go to school, each sport has a budget and an account. NO school money (i.e., state or federal funding) goes into that account. All the money is either from fundraising by the team, gate proceeds from spectators paying to get in, concession stand sales, and booster money. Our school has a large booster organization that raises and donates money for the athletic department.
When the uniforms for our girls' softball team at my kids school were worn out and needed replacing, the booster organization raised the money and bought the uniforms, not the school. So, in a year where my kids were bringing home textbooks taped together with duct tape, the softball team was wearing new, pretty, sparkly uniforms. It looks like the school prioritized uniforms over books, but that is not really the case. Books must be purchased from school funding sources, and the uniforms were provided by an outside organization. It's all about what people in the community value and are willing to donate for.
There is no English deapartment booster organization. I don't have events where I can charge $5 a person for people to come in (and expect people to show up and pay like they do for a high school football game). I can only access the money provided by the state for supplies, and when I started teaching it was $400 and now it is $135. When you have to pay copies out of your budget, $135 truly doesn't go far. But, no sense comparing it to what the football team gets, because they have access to funding I don't.
Booster organizations are separate legal entities from the school and the coach or sponsor of the sport cannot be a voting member of the booster organization. So it's all about what the people (usually parents) want.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Belle: I think it's fair to note that the reason athletics seem to never lack for money is because they receive most of their funding from parents and the community. Where I work and where my kids go to school, each sport has a budget and an account. NO school money (i.e., state or federal funding) goes into that account. All the money is either from fundraising by the team, gate proceeds from spectators paying to get in, concession stand sales, and booster money. Our school has a large booster organization that raises and donates money for the athletic department.
I believe the sports organizations where I'm from have booster programs as well, but the school itself also uses a lot of money supporting athletics. Though, I could just be showing my ignorance because I don't have a copy of the school's budget on hand or anything like that.
Edit:
Example: In recent years, the school completely renovated the baseball field as well as converting the football field to astro turf when neither facility was really in dire need of additional work.
Posts: 6026 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
When my husband taught in an inner city school, one thing that was surprising was his sudden love of sports. If a kid was on a team, he could control the kid. The coaches were very good about backing up the other teachers on disciplining- "so you misbehaved in algebra, I guess I can't play you this week." Also, the grade requirement to stay on the team made the kids work harder. The kids didn't care about algebra but they did about playing and so the worked harder. Tutoring, I saw this too. Which is why I no longer begrudge the sports teams having extra stuff.
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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posted
I think that varies though. Again this is purely anecdotal evidence, but I know for a fact that kids in my high school continued to compete in athletics despite abysmal grades and alleged requirements to meet certain academic standards.
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posted
My hockey team was a bunch of nerds in high school. We had something like a 91% grade point average combined my senior year. I think we set some sort of school record. The football/basketball/wrestling teams were not even close. Our team was actually pretty darn good athletically as well.
(Not really relevant, just something I remembered based on the current conversation.)
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
It really depends on the state and the individual school. Alabama has a no pass/no play policy which says the students must have an overall 70 average to compete in sports.
Unfortunately, you can have F's and D's in your core classes, but still bring it up to a 70 overall average with the athletic courses you take like "weights" and "recreational sports" as electives. So, it doesn't help as much as you might think.
Whether or not the kid playing sports helps me or not depends on the coach. If I have a girl mouth off to me that is on the girl's soccer team, one quick word to a coach and I have a kid at my door apologizing for disrespecting me. A football player cusses me out and tells me to "F%%% off and nothing happens, depsite me telling the head coach. *shrug*
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
It somes like football players seem to get a better free pass than some of the other high school athletes.
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