Parents Charged $125 for Eisenhower School Sports

Parents will pay a bit less than projected for their children to play interscholastic sports at Eisenhower Middle School.

The board adopted a fee schedule earlier this week that will charge families $125 per student, regardless of how many sports they play.  The charge will be made possible with a $30,000 contribution from the Board of Education.

"We wanted to make sure the fee is fair," board President Rob Francin said.

The board had considered higher fees to ensure the future of the program, which was threatened due to a lack of funding in the 2010-11 budget. Fees of were proposed, with a $159 fee for the much bigger track program. The estimated $47,280 sports program would have been supplemented with a $15,000 offering from the school board.

The board had shelved those fees while voting to establish some fee schedule to preserve the program, leaving charges up to business Administrator Alan Reiffe and interim Superintendent Richard Kuder to determine.

Francin said the $125 fee, which covers multi-sport athletes' participation, was determined largely by first assessing how much the board was capable of paying toward the program.

"We understand times are tough," he said. "We wanted to make sure we didn't burden families too much."

The interscholastic program—boys and girls soccer, boys and girls basketball, cheerleading, baseball, softball and track—was effectively eliminated per the defeated 2010-11 budget, as the board struggled to stay within spending caps while dealing with an unexpected total loss of state aid.

However, the prior board had indicated it would find a way to keep the travel program alive, whether through fees or a partnership of sorts with Wyckoff recreation.

Current board members had said that retaining the program was a priority, as the offerings are central to what sets the Wyckoff School District apart from others. However, some bristled at the thought of charging $259 per sport, feeling that such a charge would be much too expensive.

Tryouts for fall sports begin Monday.