HCPS dons new ‘pay to play’ rule which affects students, teachers, parents

Before last school year had ended, rumors were circulating about the new ‘pay to play’ rule that the Harford County Board of Education was instituting.

Those rumors are true however, and now athletes will have to pay a fee of 50 dollars to be able to play the sport of their desire. Not only are just the athletes affected though, any student that is in a school organization will have to pay a fee of 25 dollars.

  “The fees are crazy. This does not give any athlete a set amount of playing time, so what is going to happen when a kid that does not always get to play, has to pay to sit on the bench?,” said senior  Juliane Caughron.

These fees did not randomly come out of the blue, the Board of Ed hopes that these fees will boost the revenue which will help to save teaching positions. A large quantity of positions would have been cut due to the $424.7 million operating budget approved for this school year.

Board members hope that these fees will make the parents of students realize HCPS financial problems.

“This is just the beginning,” said Board Member Cassandra Beverley, “we may be charging for other things.”

Originally, there were to be 91 teaching positions cut through HCPS, but with the fees implemented, only 79 positions needed to be cut. Along with those numbers, the Board eliminated any raises that were planned for 5,400 HCPS employees.

“At least this rule is allowing some of the teachers to return, although it’s unfair that such a huge amount of teachers won’t get the raise they were once promised,” said Caughron.

This is not the first time that the Board has lacked to follow through with the raises. At the meeting when the fees were announced, a vast group of teachers were upset that there was yet again going to be no salary increase.

      The only plus side for the teachers, is that they will be exempt from having to pay any fees that their children may have had to pay. This also goes for any children with parents in the military, or families that are enrolled in the program for Free and Reduced Meals.

  The combined fees for the programs should add up to roughly half a million dollars which would help aid the $3.6 million budget for extracurricular programs.

  As of right now, of the 24 schools is the system, 7 of them are initiating the fees for the 2013-2014 school year.