Ohio schools pushing to eliminate pay-to-play fees in athletics

By: Zac Sommer and Ty Sugick

Ohio high school students pay as much as $1,200 in order to participate in sports and various extra-curricular activities sponsored by their schools.

School districts require students to pay certain fees that are meant to help fund school sponsored sports as a way to balance growing costs that exceed state funding. Removing these fees would cause some schools to eliminate certain sports.

Secretary of State Jon R. Husted has been speaking to communities around the state about this issue and said there are a growing number of high schools in Ohio that are requiring students pay these fees in order to participate in after school activities.

“Schools are charging pay to participate fees in co-curricular activities,” Husted said. “This could be everything from band to football.”

A survey conducted by the Ohio High School Athletic Association found that of 471 Ohio high schools, 46 percent require a fee to participate in after school athletics. These fees are meant to cover costs of transportation and equipment.

Husted said these fees are becoming a problem because more and more children in Ohio and across America are growing up in poverty and are unable to make these payments.

“Last year in Ohio, nearly 40 percent of all children that were born, were born into a Medicaid situation with a single mother living in poverty,” Husted said. “We are seeing a decline in the number middle-class and poor kids that are participating in these kinds of activities.”

Pay-to-participate fees become even more problematic for families when they have more than one child participating in these school sponsored activities. As of 2015, Howland High School requires students participating in sports to pay $100 per sport season and a maximum of $200 per school year.

Howland High School assistant principal, Michael Pollifrone said pay-to-participate fees were implemented in 2013 in order to offset the cost of transportation for after school activities.

“The district was hurting financially,” Pollifrone said. “We didn’t want to cut athletics or bussing, so to cut some of the costs we went to these fees.”

Kent State University communications major Zach Harley attended Valley Forge High School in Parma, OH and said he’s had to pay participation fees since the seventh grade. When Harley entered high school in 2008, the fees increased from $100 a sport to $150 a sport. Harley said before his sophomore year a school levy failed and the fees increased dramatically.

“They moved it up to $650 per sport,” Harley said.  “If you were a three-sport-athlete, you were paying almost $2,000 just to play three different sports.”

Harley was a two-sport-athlete his freshman year and said when the school increased the fees he had to quit a sport because the cost was so high.

“I played football and baseball my freshman year,” Harley said. “When that $650 came, my parents told me they’d pay it, but I didn’t want them paying $650 for a sport I didn’t love, so I quit football.”

When the fees increased at the the start of his sophomore year, Harley said it affected most of the players on the football team.

“When that pay-to-play came, that $650 came, the quarterback quit, I quit, one of the running backs quit and all of our defensive backs left,” Harley said. “When my class came around, they didn’t have a lot of players and if they did, they didn’t play another sport.”

Play-to-participate fees are nothing new, but they have been increasing among Ohio high schools in the past years.  Husted said these fees are a “growing trend” and prevent some students from experiencing “success-building skills” these activities teach.

“It’s (extra-curricular activities) purpose is to teach leadership skills, teamwork, toughness, self-discipline and resilience.  All of these are what I call success skills,” Husted said. “These fees are clearly serving as a barrier to participation and a barrier to opportunity for thousands of kids who already face enough barriers in their lives.”

Husted said he is trying to raise awareness and encourage schools to eliminate these fees so every student can have the same opportunities. Husted hopes schools can find a solution to this growing issue and keep the government from getting involved.

“We never like to mandate things and that’s why we are trying to appeal to schools that they need to come up with different options,” Husted said. “Ultimately, if we continue to see the growth of the number of schools that charge these fees, a continued increase in the amount of the fees, to where it becomes so problematic that there are no other options other than to pass legislation preventing it, then it may come to that, but I hope not.”