District 204 trying to save middle school soccer
Sixth grader Joshua Talbot-Bowe got a civics lesson Monday night as Indian Prairie Unit District 204’s board members discussed ways to save middle school soccer — in part because of 120 signatures he collected from his Granger Middle School classmates.
“You can go back to your 120 friends and say the fact of the matter is that the board doesn’t want to cut soccer,” board member Dawn DeSart said. “Nobody up here wants to cut soccer. We just don’t have the money.”
Yet, the board did offer some hope the sport can be spared.
District 204 is wrestling with how to trim $8.6 million to cover a deficit in its budget caused by costs required by the state to implement the new statewide Common Core curriculum plus educator evaluations that will be tied to student achievement. To do so, the district needs to spend money on technology and education for district staff. The already cash-strapped district has cut about $30.4 million from its budget in the past three years largely by laying off 145 certified educators and increasing class sizes.
Discussions on proposed cuts for next year include more layoffs, reducing some sports programming at the high school level and dropping middle school soccer.
About 20 soccer supporters held up “Save Soccer” signs during Monday night’s board meeting.
And because saving middle school soccer is a less expensive proposition — $50,000 is spent to pay coaches — district officials say there may be some ways to keep it. Officials plan to approach the Wheatland Athletic Association to see if it would be interested in sponsoring the program. Then, soccer would not officially be a middle school sport, but students would represent their schools and use district fields.
The district also may look at paring back the number of levels of middle school football to keep soccer. Officials said that might be difficult because about 600 boys play football, requiring coaches for supervision and three weight classes for safety. About 140 students in the district play middle school soccer. Most area middle schools offer either football or soccer. Naperville District 203, for instance, has football.
Still Middle School parent Christie Kruchten, whose son played soccer this year, presented the board with 400 signatures collected online to save soccer. She would prefer the sport remain district-sponsored.
“But if it is the only option, I would rather have that than none at all,” she said.
Sixth grader Talbot — Bowe agreed. “It seems like they are doing all they can,” he said of board members. “I hope I can play next year.”
Several other people attended Monday’s meeting in support of library media center (LMC) assistants. The bulk of the recommended cuts for next year, $6.25 million, are coming from the layoff of 55 teachers, 55 support staff members and four administrators. Officials hope to absorb most of those cuts by hiring staff back as others retire, but a board decision was made to reduce the hours of LMC assistants from full- to part-time to save more than $400,000.
“No question, this has been very, very controversial,” Assistant Superintendent Martha Baumann said. “We simply could not come up with something feasible that we were any more comfortable with.”
Superintendent Kathy Birkett explained there would have to be other staffing cuts if the assistants were kept full time, which would lead to an increase in class sizes in third through fifth grades from 31 students to 32.
“The bottom line is that we’re at a point now where we have to make these difficult decisions,” she said. Board members did not take a vote on the staffing change, but did give their verbal support for the cuts.