Activity funding: bad to worse
Posted on June 27th, 2008 – 12:26 PMBy John Millea
On Wednesday afternoon, South St. Paul athletic director Rich Dippel was one of 20 people from around the state who met in Ottertail, Minn., to discuss ways to solve the problems many schools have in funding sports and other activities. (Read about that meeting by clicking HERE.)
This morning, Dippel was told that his job was being eliminated because of funding shortfalls in his district.
Here is an excerpt from an email Dippel sent out today:
“I was informed that because the legislators from our area, in a meeting with the School Board, informed the School Board to not expect new money in next year’s funding formula, the district was going to make some moves to get ahead of what the administration believes to be a $1 million shortfall for the 2009/2010 school year by making additional cuts to this year’s budget. These cuts include the elimination of the Activities Director’s position.
“At this point I have no information on how the district plans
on conducting the Activities Programs or how they anticipate
administering these programs. I also have no information on any additional cuts that the district is planning on making.”
When it comes to high school activities in Minnesota, the wolf is clearly at the door.
12 Responses to "Activity funding: bad to worse"
Sign of the times, make cuts, cuts, and more cuts, and let the kids suffer the ramifications of the cuts. I am so sorry for all of the high schools that have to make cuts, that in the end only hurt kids. Do more, with less….. that is why I retired from teaching at the earliest date possible.
I have been hearing stories like this from all over and I am torn. I firmly beleive sports, arts and music are essential to well-rounded people. I am equally convinced that they should be managed by the community as a whole and should not be the responsibility of schools. I want schools to focus on their academic mission.
As a SSP resident I am very surprised by this. Rich did a good job with the resources he had. While the decisions our school board and administrators have to make are tough sometimes, the removal of an AD is comparable to cutting a principal. It affects almost as many students. I hope for the sake of the board this wasn’t just a money decision, because if it was, it was a short-sided move and one made out of haste. This isn’t the first time the board has done something like this. My guess is that they have someone in mind for this job and will suddenly “find” the money for this job, when the air clears. They made a sweetheart deal with a big name coach a few years back and I wouldn’t be surprised if they do it again. It’s pitiful that a good guy like Rich is the victim of a poor board.
Why don’t the schools ever talk about the real problem with school funding.
They don’t have a money problem, they have a employee benefits problem.
If they would give the same benefits as private business they would be swimming in money.
Thank you T-Paw for shifting the burden for school funding. I empathize with the district, after all it is best to anticipate and act proactively. But it has been proven time and again that extracurricular activities are a positive influence for the vast majority of students who participate.
While I can sympathize with anyone who loses their job–today must be very sad and difficult for this man–I must say that funding for school athletics is out of control. High schools are putting in artificial turf that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and next to nothing for science labs. We wonder why the most popular college major in the US is physical education, while China is turning out engineers by the thousands. Our youth will go where the money is, and too much of it has been spent on public high school sports.
What is more important in educating and employing future graduates - athletic activities or math/science? As a parent, I’d prefer to cut activities completely and fund education. Schools are no longer teaching reading, writing and mathematics to compete in the 21st century workplace.
The hot shot legislators can build stadiums for the million dollar owners but can not fund education in this state.
This is a sad state of affairs we are in
I did a quick Google search for “most popular college majors” and about two minutes of reading at several of the sites confirms that Physical Education isn’t a top ten college major according to anyone. The Princeton Review says the top 10 majors are:
1. Business Administration and Management/Commerce
2. Psychology
3. Nursing
4. Biology/Biological Sciences
5. Education
6. English Language and Literature
7. Economics
8. Communications Studies/Speech Communication and Rhetoric
9. Political Science and Government
10. Computer and Information Sciences
Eric — use facts please, not your personal biases and gut feelings.
Athletics and activities deserve more credit for the life lessons, values, and character development that they provide students. I know my local high school’s athletics and activities budget represents about 2% of the district expenditures. Even cutting entirely doesn’t represent a substancial savings, especially when considering what is lost by doing so.
sblake, PE majors would be included under # 5, education. My big worry is that so many are majoring in soft studies and the decline in engineering. There is no shortage of people in bus admin, & psych & ed. I am glad to see that biology & nursing are moving up.
Congratulations to the SSP Board of Education and Superintendent for making a difficult decision to get ahead of a looming budget problem. The Activities Director blaming the legislature is not the problem; it is the never ending list of “wants”. Our state’s schools will have to prioritize and purchase the “wants” they can afford with the money that is allocated to them by the state and local taxpayers. SSP’s Activity Director position must have fallen below, or off the list of necessary items to run the schools. Tough decision? Yes, End of the World? No.
