MIDDLEBURY -- The Middlebury Community Schools board unanimously approved a list of budget cuts that included the elimination of funding for freshman, sixth-grade and B-team sports Tuesday, challenging community members to find new ways to fund and save them.
About 50 people showed up for the two-and-a-half hour meeting. Though members of the public rarely speak during public comment, eight patrons spoke, all urging the board to reconsider cutting extracurricular activities, a move that Superintendent Jim Conner said will save $56,000 in salaries from the district's general fund.
The cuts made up for a loss of more than $1 million in state funding toward the school's general fund, which covers salaries and utility costs. Conner said 87 percent of the fund goes to salaries. Gov. Mitch Daniels announced at the end of last year that he would cut $300 million -- about 4.5 percent -- from state funding for K-12 education for 2010 due to a shortfall in revenue.
From the high school, the move eliminated funding for boys and girls freshman basketball, freshman football, freshman volleyball, the pep band, intramural sports, several clubs and several assistant positions. The middle school lost funding for seventh- and eighth-grade B teams for football, girls and boys basketball and volleyball, sixth-grade A and B teams for girls and boys basketball, sixth-grade cheerleading and the Aerospace Club. Money for all elementary extracurricular activities except for the Special Olympics was cut.
Patrons who spoke said athletics and other extracurricular activities are important for the development of children, and cutting sixth-grade, freshman and B teams would take away chances for many student athletes.
"In the classroom, this may be the only motivation that some of these young men and women will experience," said Steve Kasten, a parent who has coached eighth-grade and freshman football. "That's the driving force that keeps them in school."
Though the board approved cuts ranging from eliminating aides and reducing the teaching force by 11.5 positions, nobody spoke against any cut other than extracurricular activities.
All five board members, some of whom said they had served as coaches, voted for the cuts. Conner warned the board that any cut they voted against would have to be replaced with something else. He also said he expects another cut in state revenue at the beginning of 2011, and at that point, the district will have to consider more drastic measures, like closing an elementary school and eliminating the Reading Recovery program.
Northridge High School football coach Jonathon Kirkton told the board that all of his freshman coaches had said they'd be willing to coach on a volunteer basis. Several other patrons asked the board if they could save the programs through fundraising.
Board members said the possibility of saving the programs through fundraising and volunteer coaches is open, but Conner clarified that coaching on a volunteer basis would have to be approved by the teachers' union, and there are limitations to what can legally be done with fundraisers to pay for salaries. But board President Tim Weadick urged parents to come back to the board with a proposal to raise money to save the programs.
"I feel your pain. But I'm going to vote that freshman sports and B-team sports go with the expectation that this community will save it. That's my expectation," said board secretary Jim Lichtenberger, who has worked as a coach. "I'll be darned if I will vote to get rid of reading readiness or whatever helps the elementary kids or the wrong-side-of-the-tracks kids."