Start with money for field house usage. Add money for overtime compensation for a trainer and money to hire officials and clock personnel. Then take $14,000 for membership in the Dual County League and Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association.
And that doesn’t even include the coaches's salary.
“Space, people, security, police, permitting, ice time, officials, coaches, clock personnel, trainers,” athletic director Perrin said. “You name it, we’re paying for it.”
The athletic department is responsible for paying for everything from transportation to custodial services. But despite the consistency of these high costs, students still know little about where their athletic fees are going.
Perhaps the most shocking of these expenses is the transportation fees.
“You order a bus and boom: flat rate is three hundred bucks, whether you’re on it for a half hour or for three hours. You go one minute over that three-hour period and extra charges start kicking in,” Perrin said. “I cannot take my football team on a Friday night with two busses full of kids, send them up to Westford, and have them back in three hours. If they leave at four, maybe they’re back at ten. That’s $1600 in bus bills alone.”
Another factor that plays into hefty transportation costs is the fact that many schools in the Dual County League are a great distance from South.
“The Dual County League takes us as far out at Tyngsboro and as far out as Westford,” Perrin said. “We having a running joke here saying ‘why do we need to pass four high schools to go to the one we’re going to play?’”
To help cover the costs, each athlete, with the exception of those who receive financial aid, pays a user fee every season. But these fees do not nearly cover the entire cost of the program.
“It costs hundreds and hundreds and thousands of dollars to run this athletic program over the course of a year,” Perrin said. “I don’t even think we bring in $200,000 in user fees. They don’t cover everything; they’re just used to help supplement our costs.”
In addition to using these fees to subsidize the costs, the Booster Club helps to finance some of the athletic department’s expenses. “We try to raise awareness of athletics and raise spirit for these athletics. We also provide financial support for the teams, the athletic department and the Wellness department,” Booster Club president Jon Frieze said.
The organization raises money through donations, memberships, concession and clothing sales and an annual golf tournament.
“All of the money that we raise gets put back into the teams, the athletic program and the Wellness department,” Frieze said. “We don’t carry money over from year to year.”
Still, the user fee is the primary source the athletic department uses to cover its costs. For most student athletes, these fees are a necessary evil.
“[The user fee] is kind of high, but I think it’s necessary,” said sophomore Liza Heeren, who plays field hockey. “If we don’t pay the user fee then we don’t get the equipment we need.”
Senior Madeleine Reed, who runs cross-country, plays ice hockey and runs track, agreed. “I know that there’s a lot to be paid for. In hockey, even to just rent an hour of ice time for practice is expensive. And I remember our [cross-country] coach told us that the user fee to run in Tyngsboro is $500 or something, so I’m just glad that we don’t have to pay that much” To compensate for ice time, hockey players pay a $280 user fee, while all other athletes pay $210.
Unlike Reed, sophomore Josh Kasten is new to paying user fees, as he attended Beaver Country Day School until this year. “[A user fee] was never something I thought about because it had been built into my tuition,” he said. “I guess I sort of was surprised.”
But South’s user fees are actually lower compared to the fees at most other schools in the Dual County League. Both Wayland High School and Westford Academy have user fees of $225, while Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School has a user fee of $300. Ranking at the top is Tyngsboro High School at $500.
“We have what the city believes is a very, very fair user fee,” Perrin said.
Each year, the school committee finalizes the cost of the user fee based on the school department’s recommendation after reassessing the budget.
An important priority, according to school committee chair Claire Sokoloff, is to ensure that these fees do not put a strain on families.
“While the fees are not desirable for any student or family that has to pay them, we want to keep them as affordable as possible,” said Sokoloff, who is also a South parent.
She added that user fees make up only a third of the city’s athletic expenses, making it necessary to allocate “quite a lot of money” to athletics.
Despite the cost, science teacher and cross-country and track coach Joanna Vrouvlianis said that no student refrains from participating in athletics because he or she cannot afford the cost.
“I don’t think that’s usually the case,” she said. “I think that most kids are very open at least with [Perrin] saying ‘I need financial aid.’ Obviously if they don’t advertise it to anyone else, we’re going to keep it confidential that they’re on financial aid.
Sokoloff said that no student who cannot afford the user fee is turned away.
“We are committed to ensuring that all students who would like to participate in sports can participate. We offer fee waivers if there is a hardship or an issue of affordability,” she said.
The current economic crisis, she explained, discourages the school committee from raising the fee.
“We are sensitive to the fact that in these economic times, raising fees is a hardship of families,” she said. “We want to make sure that we don’t raise them so much that it is going to be an economic hardship.”
Nevertheless, as time passes, the athletic fees are due to increase, according to Perrin.
“In time, this fee will go up,” he said. “That’s just the nature.”
