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Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Pay to Play

Being a high school athlete all of my four years of high school, sports are very important to me. I think that they help build character, teach responsibility, and teamwork. And apparently so do many kids and parents from the East Side Union High School District. After wanting to cut all sports in general because of the budget cuts that the California school system is undergoing the district has come up with ideas to help save the sports. The article "San Jose's East Side high schools consider plans to save sports" talks all about the plans.Some of the proposals that have been made are, that they are going to charge the students 100 dollars to play, reducing the number of athletic directors, and getting rid of the transportation to the games. The district also wants to cut all water sports because shutting down the pools will save the district 1.3 million dollars. The district has also proposed to have the students fund raise to get the money needed. Some of theText Color fundraisers proposed are, selling coupon books, sport memorabilia, and tickets to the San Jose Earthquakes and Oakland Raiders games. The district hopes that these fundraisers will raise the 1.7 Million needed to keep the sports programs. Although these proposals don’t seem too bad the parents and coaches do have some concerns. One of the main concerns that the parents have is the affordability of the sports now. The coaches said that, there are many parents who can’t afford to buy their children sports shoes and practice gear, let alone afford to pay 100 dollars for their child to play a sport. Although the coaches say that they won’t turn down any athlete that can’t afford to pay, some teens might not want to play because they don’t want to waste their parent’s money. The coaches and parents also have a concern with transportation. Since there will no longer be buses to take the athletes to and from the games, the coaches are concerned that their teams will not get to where they need to be on time or might not be complete. Having been part of a school district where students had to pay 50 dollars for every sport they played, meaning that if your child played 3 sports you’d pay 150 dollars, and a district where there was no transportation to any games. I don’t think that it is that bad of an idea to charge the kids for playing and cutting the buses. Although I feel hat 100 dollars is a little too much, if it helps to keep the sports programs it is worth it. As for the transportation, it is not so bad to carpool with your teammates. It can be done and the team will get to where they need to be on time. It all depends on the commitment of the athletes and parents to get where they need to be.

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