Hello there, I would like to discuss your article we have kids in a school sport and the school is asking for the Boosters to pay. I have been around for awhile and thats never happen. Need advice…thank you (213) 342-1802
Who should pay for CVUSD athletic programs?
- By : Rachel Bradley-Gomez
- Category : Education, Featured Story
Education
1
The athletic programs at Canyon Middle School, Creekside Middle School, and Castro Valley High School arguably create an enriched experience for the qualified student athlete who participates. I am the parent of two such students who’ve benefited immensely from the myriad of quality sports programs offered in Castro Valley Unified School District (CVUSD). As a direct result, I’ve witnessed their grades improve, self-esteem skyrocket, and work ethic increase.
At its best, youth sports offers an environment in which a child is urged to reach deep within his or her capability to achieve specific goals, which in most cases requires cooperating with others in a collaborative manner. Does this sound vaguely familiar? It should, because in CVUSD classrooms, teachers routinely assign student group projects that require solid effort and collaboration in order to work towards the group’s goals. However, the idea behind this type of character building actually transcends classrooms and sports venues at schools. Savvy businesses have been known to shell out big money in an attempt to simulate this type of team building and goal orientation in the workplace.
So now that I’ve outlined some of the reasons why athletic programs are worth keeping around, it’s time for you to pull on some rubber boots because we’re about to wade through the seriously deep muck that is the current state of affairs in CVUSD athletic program funding. From time immemorial, CVUSD has advertised a free athletic program for students and funded it within the budget. Unfortunately, as a direct result of the Great Recession, the Board of Education adopted a budget in 2009-2010 that reduced funding for K-12 athletics by 50%. In the 2010-2011 budget the board eliminated all funding for K-12 athletics.
The board made these budget reductions in an attempt to operate with a balanced budget and mitigate other program reductions. In the meantime, CVUSD has continued to offer students the opportunity to participate in athletic programs, completely free of charge! Oh happy day! Wait… did that make any sense?
How do these programs still exist if funding for athletics was eliminated from the district budget? The answer is that after the budget cuts, middle and high school athletic programs were forced to become self-funded through voluntary donations and fundraising. In addition to team fundraising, each school has an Athletic Boosters Club that raises funds to support its entire athletic program. The clubs raise funds for the following:
- Coaching stipends
- Athletic director stipends/release periods
- Transportation
- Equipment and uniforms
- League and Official fees
- Custodial and clerical support
- Game security
The single greatest expense incurred by these athletic programs is the cost of paying union-contracted coaching stipends for teachers with first right of refusal. This is a contractual stipulation between the teacher coach and the district. California law and the collective bargaining agreement mandate that if there’s a qualified certificated employee who expresses an interest a coaching position, that employee has the first right to the position; therefore, the cost of the coaching stipends can vary year-to-year based on the number of certificated employees who are coaching.
Walk-on coaches are not paid at the rates in the collective bargaining agreement and volunteer coaches are not paid at all. This means that if every coaching position were filled by a certificated employee, the potential cost of all middle and high school coaching stipends would add up to approximately $290,000. The breakdown is $45,000 for Canyon, $45,000 for Creekside, and $200,000 for CVHS. However, the actual cost in any given year is lower due to the number of walk-on and volunteer coaches.
It should then stand to reason that, at the very least, reimbursement for teacher coaches should be made by CVUSD. Yet when Michelle Gilman took on the position as Canyon Boosters Volunteer Coordinator, she learned that a majority of the Booster’s expenses — $44,677 of the $52,400 total (as of March 2015) — was going for stipends. Gilman said:
I questioned why Boosters was responsible for paying teacher’s salaries and no one could answer that question. I asked the school board and the district. The response was vague at best. Basically I was told that either Boosters paid or there wouldn’t be any sports, period.”
So in a nutshell, CVUSD is paying for teacher stipends and then turning around and squeezing the booster clubs by billing them for these stipends. It seems that the district has taken a rather hard-nosed position that there will be no sports unless parents and community directly foot the bill. This line has been drawn in the sand despite the fact that the district entered into a contractual agreement to pay for these stipends. CVUSD continues to advertise that its athletic programs remain completely free for all students despite the fact that the community labors to shoulder what was the district’s financial responsibility for decades.
At tonight’s CVUSD Board of Education meeting, there will be a report on the status of athletic funding at CVUSD’s middle and high schools.
