The booster clubs will cover all the costs of fielding an additional boys and girls teams. Those costs will include coaches' salaries and fees for officials.
Skaneateles, NY -- Skaneateles school board members have decided to go with “Plan B” and allow parents to give the cash-strapped modified soccer program a boost.
School officials, facing an $850,000 budget shortfall, had decided to cut both the boys and girls middle school programs back from two teams to one team starting this fall. That would have meant cutting pupils who wanted to play on the seventh- and eighth-grade teams.
Parents attended last week’s board meeting and asked the board to let the booster clubs – the boys and girls programs each has its own booster club -- pay the cost of maintaining the programs. School board President Evan Dreyfuss said the board would talk over the issue.
Word went out on Friday in an e-mail to the parents that the board had agreed to the parents’ desires – at least for the coming season.
School superintendent Philip D’Angelo called the one-year agreement a compromise. James Gregg, who acted as spokesman for the parents, could not be reached for comment.
The superintendent said the boosters will cover all the costs of fielding the two additional teams. Those costs will include coaches’ salaries and fees for officials.
No student athletes will be cut, he said.
“The board has always struggled with cuts,” the superintendent said.
As is stands now, D’Angelo said, the boys and girls programs will each have two teams, and each team will play five of the 10 games on the fall schedule.
He said the district will try to line up scrimmages against other schools. If that can be arranged, the boosters will pay the transportation costs, he said.
“It would not cost the district anything,” he said.
Reach John Stith at jstith@syracuse.com or 251-5718.