SOUTH HADLEY — With the cost of living and seemingly the cost of everything else rising, the School Committee approved a request to increase athletic user fees within the high school athletic program during its July 18 meeting.
South Hadley High School Principal Liz Wood and Athletic Director Eric Castonguay met with the School Committee to discuss the need for a fee increase.
The new user fee is $225 for general sports and $250 for football. Reduced lunch athletes will pay $125 and free lunch students will pay $25, according to Castonguay.
Castonguay talked about the new fees and said, “This is what we think is a good happy number for us to kind of fit where we can get our account back kind of in order. We feel like this number is going to get us to the total that we need to be to kind of counterbalance all of these rises in costs that are all around us.”
The old costs were $175 for general sports, $75 for reduced and $0 for free lunch students. Football cost $225 due to reconditioning of helmets and sanitizing their shoulder pads.
Although the increased fees were approved, Castonguay and Wood both said they would never turn a student away for money and will be flexible with payment plans.
Wood said, “We understand this is an increase in fees and I think along with that comes an increase in anxiety of caregivers and family members asking if there is something they can continue to afford but we are always willing to work with families and that’s what we want to do.”
Castonguay said before making the proposal to the School Committee, the athletic program tried to eliminate the increased costs by charging at every game rather than just night games.
“We thought that if we charge at all games, 4 [p.m.], all seasons, we thought that maybe this could offset this debt. It helped but it didn’t get is to where we need to be. We certainly tried another area before going this route to raising user fees.”
Castonguay also looked at surrounding schools to come up with a number for the increase. He said South Hadley was on the lower end to middle of the pack in terms of fees and other schools have begun increasing their user fees.
Wood said she and Castonguay also met with the School Committee in 2019 about an increase to the athletic fees that were necessary at that time.
Since then, equipment, officials and busing costs have only continued to increase by more than 20%, according to Wood but the fees have not.
She added, “We find ourselves often times really struggling to make sure our student athletes can get the care and supplies that they need. That’s not to say there not getting it, we are making sure that everyone has access to athletics, and we do so in a great way.”
Wood discussed some changing costs from 2019 until now. For example, footballs have gone from $69 to $95 and a dozen softballs went from $48 to $78. Officials also cost around $87 a game for most varsity sports in 2019 but is not now $95 a game.
Another problem is the cost of busing has increased due to teams traveling further due to new league configurations and also the location of state championship games that South Hadley tends to go to.
Wood discussed South Hadley has a long-standing tradition of successful athletics programs and “is something we should really take pride in. Our programs tend to excel to the state level on a regular basis for all three seasons. That is such a blessing and such an honor for the athletes and community but it also brings challenges.”
Castonguay echoed the point that the schools success is exciting for the community but in terms of finances, they need to figure out a way to keep it going.
He said, “I am very proud of being head of this department because all of our teams last year made the state tournament. We are very proud of them but these costs are hurting us and not every school district is facing this right now because they don’t have the success we’re that were having. I think there’s only three schools in Western Massachusetts where all their teams made the state tournament and is something to be proud of as a community but have to figure it out so we can keep it going.”
During the meeting, Wood said that in the past, caregivers have reached out saying they would like to sponsor another athlete and there are accounts set up that funds can go in to can be utilized for equipment or athletes.
Wood added students have also helped their teammates in the past by offering to sponsor them and their costs.
The School Committee approved the increased fees unanimously.
