The Mascenic Regional School District is pursuing a combination approach to preserve middle school sports for the coming year, with a mixure of reducing costs, using grant funding, and community fundraising to fill the gap after the district’s budget failed at the polls in March.
During a school board meeting on Monday, Superintendent Liz Pogorzelski said that the district recognizes the benefits of athletics and after-school activities in supporting character development and lifelong learning.
“I want to reiterate, this is not anyone’s first choice,” Pogorzelski said, of not being able to fund activities and athletics through the budget this year.
A community action group has formed to help fundraise money to support athletics for the coming year, and Pogorzelski said she has been in contact with them about the amounts they will need to raise, and by when, though she said some of those discussions will hinge on future decisions made by the School Board.
Namely, one of those decisions will be how transportation is handled, as it is one of the largest cost factors facing the district.
Pogorzelski proposed a two-pronged approach to tackling the transportation issue — the first being to change the district’s transportation policy, to allow for the possibility of coaches or parents transporting students to and from games. That work is already being undertaken by a subcommittee of the School Board that reviews the district’s policies.
Pogorzelski said the district has had conversations with its counsel about changes to the policy and potential liabilities. She said the current conversation of the subcommittee is to create specific policies for when the district offers transportation, and when it does not. She said the current conversations have been to allow non-district transportation to more local games, such as to Wilton-Lyndeborough, Hillsborough, Milford, Jaffrey-Rindge or ConVal districts. The district would continue to bus children to further destinations. She said the district is also only currently looking at allowing non-district transportation for the middle school, to eliminate issues that could arise by allowing high school students to transport themselves.
School Board Vice Chair Jeremy Klebes said that safety would remain a priority, and the board was “not going to sacrifice student safety so that we can have middle school sports.”
The subcommittee will continue to refine that policy and present it to the full board at an upcoming meeting for review.
Pogorzelski suggested the the remaining transportation cost could be covered by grant funding from the Widow Island Fund, a yearly grant given to the district that is aimed at student enrichment. She said the fund could also be used to cover dues, fees and purchase services. In the past, the fund has been used to support clubs such as a field trip club, a manga club, supported the robotics team, and sports such as archery and wrestling.
Klebes asked if there were items that the fund would otherwise be used for that were being foregone to support Boynton athletics. Pogorzelski said in conversations with administration at the district’s other schools, it was agreed that Boynton was a priority this year. She said the fund is often used for equipment replacements, and is not this year. The bus funding and service fees will use some of this year’s allocation, as well as some left-over funds from last year, but not the entire amount, which will still be used for activity support.
School Board member Steve Spratt said he had reservations about using the Widow Island Fund in that manner, saying the goal of the fund was for student enrichment, and though it would be supporting student activities, it was more on the “operational” side.
If the board uses the Widow Island fund for those purposes, Pogorzelski said the major fundraising goal would be for stipends. She said the total cost for all stipends across the fall, Winter and Spring seasons is about $32,000. She said while individuals could voluntarily give up their stipends, she would not recommend eliminating stipends all together.
The community action group has committed to fundraising the entire amount by Aug. 1, Pogorzelski said.
“We’ve been vocal that this is not an ideal situation,” Pogorzelski said, noting that funding sports and activities through the budget is still the district’s goal, and it would be difficult to continuously fund through community donations.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on X @AshleySaariMLT.