School sports

There appears to be no good answer to the problem as to how to fund co-curricular activities and athletics in the operating budget of the Ashburnham-Westminster Regional School District.

The choices appear to be either institute a pay-to-play program, which would lead to extraordinarily high fees and would limit the number of students able to participate; institute a 50-50 pay-to-play program, which would lead to slightly lower fees and cuts within the existing operating budget; covering all of the cocurricular costs within the budget, which means large cuts within the academic resources of the school district; or the elimination of the athletic and co-curricular activities.

On a practically level the answer seems simple make the parents pay for their children to participate therefore the academic resources of the school district remain while the students who want to expand their interest pay for it.

But, wait a second.

How do these 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18- year-old children know what they are interested in and where they skills are?

Oh that's right they try out in high school May it's participating in the debate team that helps them decide politics is their calling or they sign up for the soccer team and realize the team's trainer has an interesting job and decide to major in sports medicine.

There are questions of whether athletics and co-curricular fees should be part of the operating budget because voters passed an override in 2004. Yes, there were discussions three years ago that the athletic fees would be eliminated and they were for a time.

But now does it make sense to keep the athletic and co-curriculars free and eliminate more course offerings in the schools?

Because perhaps it is a students' experiencing taking upper level biology that makes him or her become a doctor. Or it's that independent student with a teacher that shows them a job repairing cars is what they really want.

There are questions about whether eliminating co-curricular activities and athletics is fairer than implementing a play to pay program which would limit the number of student who could participate for financial reasons.

The answer here is, of course it would. But the question that will arise if the override fails, is what is worse evil - eliminating it for all or eliminating it for some?