OP-ED: Why Won't Southern Lehigh Fund Middle School Lacrosse???

 Do you know how athletic funding decisions are made here at Southern Lehigh? Apparently, behind closed doors and with little regard to the student athletes or their tax-paying parents.

After reading over the 2010 athletic budget and attending Monday (Feb. 14) night’s School Board meeting, we are shocked at how poorly our girls lacrosse program has been and continues to be treated, specifically as it relates to the budget allocation process. 

At issue here is who should receive the $4,000 leftover from the High School’s non-existent JV Softball program.  The High School Softball coach is asking for those leftover funds to be used to start up a brand new softball program at the Middle School. We, the coaches and parents of the Middle School girls lacrosse players, are asking for those dollars to be spent on finally funding our program which has been consistently serving 30-40 players per season for the last eight years.  At present we only receive school busing to away games.

 This $4,000 would allow each of our 34 Middle School girls lacrosse players this year to play with little cost to the parents.  Because we have been forced to rely on our parents to fully support this program (uniforms, referee fees, balls, goals, equipment), many students who have wanted to come out for lacrosse have been denied the opportunity to play. Something here needs to change. 

Girls lacrosse is the fastest growing sport in the nation with close to 250% growth over the past ten years.  Our Middle School schedule consists of competitive teams such as Owen J. Roberts, Upper Perkiomen, Easton, Parkland, Boyertown East and West, Saucon Valley, Pottstown and Wyoming Seminary. And yet every year when we request funding from the school we are denied, told time after time that there are simply no funds available in the budget.

Last year the High School Softball program had a budget of approximately $15,000 and only one team of 13 students. This averages out to about $1,100 of our tax dollars per sudent player - the single most expensive sport per student at Southern Lehigh.  Our High School Girls Lacrosse program however had a full Varsity and JV team with a total of 48 students and a budget of only $11,000 -- receiving $4,000 less and coaching almost 5 times more students! For four years lacrosse has had between 40-50 students playing while softball has struggled to find enough interest from the students to field even one varsity team. Shouldn’t funding dollars be tied somehow to participation rates?

Despite their small numbers, Southern Lehigh’s Softball program has been and we hope will continue to be highly competitive.  It is unfortunate that due to the district’s budgetary constraints we are in the unenviable position of asking to take funds from one girls sport to fund another. If not for lacrosse supporters at Monday night’s Board meeting, the proposal to fund a Middle School softball program would have passed without question. Your tax dollars would have been spent on a program that year after year can’t rally enough student interest to warrant these additional JV funds.

These dedicated lacrosse coaches and parents were able to push the vote back to tonight (Feb. 28) at 7:30pm at the High School Board Room. While we fully support the addition of girls softball at the Middle School - the more girls playing sports the better - we feel strongly that these surplus softball dollars should be used to support our robust and well-established Girls Lacrosse program and not a brand-new softball program with a track record of little student interest at the High School. Reality dictates that we operate within the currently allotted budget and we realize that tough decisions need to be made.

Sincerely,

Concerned Parents of Southern Lehigh Middle School Girls Lacrosse:

(Yun Wolfe, Cliff Malesky, Bob and Amy Grammer, Annette Young, Francis and Donna Stauffer, Terri Clemmer, Theresa Andreucci, Tricia and John Kehs, Andrew and Andrea Hall, Lisa Pedersen, Stephanie  and Sal DiGiovanni, Steph and Bob Gehman, Mark and Carol Frawley, Rod and Judy Chirumbolo, Patty and Steve Durics, Tom and Beth Strauss, Peter and Oriane Rembalsky, Jess and Scott Lievendag, John Snyder, Holly Schmitt, Trina and Dan Falco, Andy and Karen Krupa, Bob and Patti Bradley, Wendy Matsumura, and Beth and Andy Boyle)