Posted on Mon, Aug. 04, 2008

Editor's note: This story was published in the Lexington Herald-Leader on Dec. 9, 2005.

In Fayette County, activities like football depend on fund-raising and money from parents, creating vast differences in what's available for extracurricular activities at the five public high schools. Teams at Bryan Station usually have less to spend than teams at other schools. The cramped locker room for its football team, above, sits in the belly of the stadium and smells of stale sweat and mildew. Even two small football players can barely maneuver in the space between lockers. Paint peels off of the walls. Pushed into one corner is old weight equipment.

Last year, parents of Fayette County high school students raised more than $2.8 million so their kids could participate in activities such as baseball, cheerleading and band. At least $630,000 of that came directly from parents' pockets.

Parents and students work year-round at bingo parlors, concession stands, car washes and sales events to raise that money.

That support might illustrate parents' dedication to their children, but it creates a system in which playing on teams in public schools is essentially a private enterprise -- and not everyone gets to participate.

Tiffany Collins, 15, wanted to join the color guard at Henry Clay High School.

But when her father, Kevin Collins, showed up for a booster meeting last year, he was shocked to learn what it would cost: $470 in fees and $1,300 in fund-raising.

"That first night they wanted several hundred dollars, just as a commitment," he said. "There was no way that we were going to be able to do this."

Across the country, school districts are looking for ways to pay for sports and extracurricular activities without spending tax dollars needed for academics. But they also want students to benefit from being part of a team, staying active and learning to compete.

Many turn to booster clubs and participation fees to supplement budgets.

But Fayette County requires more than just supplemental help. The district is unusual in that it relies on parents and booster clubs to pay for everything except the utilities and the head coaches' salaries.

For more than four months, the Lexington Herald-Leader examined the financial records of 50 groups, including band and nine sports (see charts) at Fayette County's five public high schools and talked to more than 100 coaches, parents and students about the system.

The investigation showed that:

* Boys' teams often have more money than girls' teams. One national expert on Title IX, the federal law that requires parity in school sports, said that the inequity could be a direct violation of the law.

* Financial requirements prevent some students from participating.

* There is little oversight of the money raised and how it is spent.

* Vast inequities exist between schools because some booster clubs raise enough money to provide extras, while others struggle to provide the basics.

* Coaches say they spend too much time worrying about money and not enough time helping students improve their skills.

Fayette County Schools Superintendent Stu Silberman says the district doesn't expect the booster clubs to pay for anything. But he acknowledges that the groups pay for more than the district would.

"It's a situation where they come forward to help us have a better-quality program than we can afford," he said.

Coaches and parents say the county wouldn't have sports and band programs at all without booster clubs.

The Bryan Station High School baseball boosters, for example, paid for the team's field house, field lights, scoreboard and field maintenance. The parent group, which raised more than $33,000 last year, also pays for assistant coaches and umpires, leaving only the head coach's salary to be paid by the school district.

No students are prevented from participating in sports or other activities because they can't raise money, parents and school officials say.

But every year, dozens of students at each high school say exactly the opposite on Kentucky High School Athletic Association surveys: They do not participate in sports because of the cost.

It's easy to find such students.

Natasha King, a Tates Creek senior, wanted to play softball last spring and worked out with the team. But she quit when she found out she needed to raise as much as $800.

"It was just too much," King said. She said she talked about the cost with her mother. "She was like, 'You can play softball in the back yard.'"

Under Kentucky law, students can't be prevented from getting an education based on their ability to pay. And fund-raising can't be required for any class.

Since sports take place outside the classroom, students may be asked to pay fees and fund-raise. Even with band, which is both a class and an extracurricular activity, students may be pressured to raise money as long as they aren't penalized if they don't meet the financial goals, said Kevin Noland, an attorney for the state Department of Education.

At times, the financial requirements seem all but mandatory.

"If the parents are refusing to do something," said Allison Denton, the girls' basketball coach at Lafayette, "I look at the girl and say, 'You know what, you're not getting your sweat pants, you're not getting your travel suit, you're not getting your uniform until you do this, this and this.'

"It's part of being on the team," she said.

The Fayette County school district has been reluctant to impose rules for booster clubs, in part because the groups are separate organizations that are incorporated as non-profits.

Other Kentucky school districts put limits on booster clubs. Ashland public schools, for example, prevent booster groups there from raising money with bingo.

In Fayette County, booster groups decide, in conjunction with coaches and band directors, what equipment they need and what trips they want to take. Then, they calculate how much money they need. Often, to calculate the amount each student must raise, the total budget is simply divided by the number of students participating.

Not all booster clubs work the same way. Some groups have fees. Others set fund-raising requirements. Some allow parents to buy their way out of fund-raising. Others don't.

When the Herald-Leader made an open-records request in the spring for five years of booster club budgets, the district said it did not routinely collect those numbers. However, district policy requires that those numbers be compiled so that schools can accurately report spending on boys' and girls' sports to the state's high school athletic association.

After the newspaper's request, the district changed the policy. Booster club financial reports now go directly to Silberman.

In some cases, the documents given to the newspaper were incomplete. None showed how much money booster groups asked individual students to contribute or raise, or how often those requirements were waived.

Money contributed directly by parents was not always recorded as such. The Lafayette baseball boosters, for example, characterized the $4,000 parents contributed to buy their way out of working bingo as "option 2 bingo."

Not every team sets fees or fund-raising goals. The Lafayette football team has had neither, and Coach Mike Harmon opposes the idea every time it comes up. He doesn't want to prevent students from playing, and he doesn't think it's right.

"Everybody's situation is different," Harmon said. "Some people can obviously do more than others."

The financial requirements are hardest on families who don't have a lot of money yet don't qualify for free or reduced lunch, said Chuck Smith, director of the Lafayette band.

Last year, Lafayette band students paid $1,100 in fees in addition to raising $550. For middle-class families, Smith tries to work out payment plans.

Tiffany Collins talked to Henry Clay's band director to figure out a way to participate despite the fees.

Collins' family doesn't qualify for free and reduced lunch. The $470 was too much money just to pay, said Kevin Collins, and they didn't have the time to fund-raise. Collins, who works for an engineering firm, is often out of town. His wife, Ella, stays home. They have another daughter, Brittany, who is 13.

"We're running around enough as it is," he said.

Booster clubs have always supplemented sports and band budgets in Fayette County. Originally, boosters helped students pay for extras, like trips out of state, said Barth Pemberton, who was on the school board from 1979 until 1994. The district, with the help of ticket sales, paid for transportation, game officials, assistant coaches and other routine expenses.

Over the years, sports like soccer, volleyball and softball were added. In addition, Title IX forced schools to dedicate more resources to girls' sports.

"It used to be that football and basketball pretty well paid for the other sports," said Dwight Price, who was principal of Lafayette High School from 1972 to 1987. "But we keep adding more sports, and it's more of a burden."

In Fayette County, boys' teams often have an easier time raising money than girls', in part because they hold bingo licenses, which can generate more than $100,000 a year. In some cases, girls' teams work bingo slots that are held by the boys' teams, but the team holding the license usually earns more.

Kristen Galles is an attorney for Equity Legal, a public interest law firm in Alexandria, Va., that deals with Title IX cases around the country. A system like Fayette County's, where booster clubs are paying for a majority of a team's expenses, could present legal problems, she says.

"If you've got unequal booster participation, then you've probably got unequal treatment issues, which is a direct violation of Title IX," Galles said. "The school is still ultimately responsible to make sure its boys and its girls are being treated equally."

The state legalized bingo in 1992, and it became a lucrative source of revenue for boosters. Bingo brings in more money than any other fund-raising activity.

Bingo money and personal loans taken out by parents allowed booster clubs for baseball teams to add lights, concession stands and field houses. The groups took over field maintenance from the county. Today, Fayette County public schools have some of the best baseball facilities in the state. The field houses have batting cages and practice pitching mounds.

The improvements forced the district to build or upgrade softball facilities at all five high schools after the Kentucky High School Athletic Association sanctioned three Fayette County high schools in 2001. Henry Clay, for example, was put on probation for two years and was fined $250, and the baseball team wasn't allowed to use its concession stand/press box or travel out of state for one year because the school did not have a softball field.

Today, if a new sport is added, the district pays start-up costs. After that, the program is on its own. The main source of income is ticket revenue.

Some sports earn a lot through ticket sales. Last year, the Tates Creek football team made $34,000 from gate receipts. Others earn far less. The Tates Creek girls' soccer team, for example, took in $1,700.

At Henry Clay, gate receipts from sports are pooled and then divided by the athletic director according to the number of players on each team.

Last year, the school's sports events brought in more than $67,000 in ticket sales. Usually, there is enough money to pay for game officials and some transportation, said Becky Bushong, the school's athletic director.

But at other Fayette County high schools, where the money is not pooled, the gap between what boys' and girls' sports collect is wide.

Last year, the girls' basketball team at Tates Creek, for example, earned $6,800 from gate receipts while boys' basketball took in $17,800.

"The boys always had three or four times more fans than we did," said Jan Ulmer, who coached girls' basketball last year. Ulmer now coaches at a private school in South Carolina, in part because of the fund-raising situation in Fayette County.

Booster clubs increase the gaps in support for boys' and girls' sports. Dunbar baseball, for example, raised $116,000 for the team last year. About $31,000 went toward a loan to pay for a hitting facility, concession stands and bathrooms.

Even subtracting the loan payments, the Dunbar baseball team raised almost four times more for the boys than the softball team did for the girls.

Not surprisingly, schools with more affluent parents raise more money for sports.

At Dunbar, where 20 percent of students qualify for free and reduced lunches, parents raised $1,235 for each student on a team or in band and spent $1,262 per student. At Bryan Station, where 53 percent of students receive free or reduced lunches, booster clubs brought in $541 a student and spent $707. (Schools can spend more than they raise because sometimes there is money left over from previous years and money from gate receipts.)

The Bryan Station volleyball team, for example, spent about $9,200 last year. The Lafayette volleyball team spent $9,000 on camp and uniforms alone. Overall, Lafayette spent $25,000.

William Henderson III, an assistant football coach and athletic director at Bryan Station, said that kids there have quit the football team because the school doesn't have good equipment.

Last year, with gate receipts, fund-raising and savings, Tates Creek football had $96,400 to spend. Bryan Station had $34,600.

Henderson doesn't blame parents, who he said support the team. But many don't have jobs flexible enough to allow them to help, he said.

"Lot of kids, if their parents don't show up for work, they don't have a job," Henderson said.

The remodeled Bryan Station High School, scheduled to open in January 2007, will remedy some of the inequities. The district plans to build a new stadium, with a much-needed football locker room, the following year.

The current football locker room is a cramped space, the size of two small classrooms, that reeks of mildew and stale sweat.

But the new facilities won't provide all the extras that some other schools have, such as the turf fields that Dunbar, Tates Creek and Henry Clay have.

Unlike grass, turf can be used daily, even when wet. Henry Clay and Tates Creek have practice fields as well as turf fields.

In the past nine years, Henry Clay parents have spent $100,000 on the soccer practice field. They leveled it and added better soil and Bermuda grass, said Mark Simon, president of the booster club for girls' soccer.

Bryan Station has a practice field, but it isn't level and often floods. Its plans don't include a field house, like the one the Henry Clay football boosters built -- with a weight room, locker room and film room.

When Brad Reeves, who graduated from Bryan Station in 1964, went to a football game last fall, he was appalled by the conditions under the stadium. He and others from the alumni association formed the Bryan Station Athletic Committee.

The group wants to raise enough money to build a field house like Henry Clay's, which, Reeves estimates, will cost around $250,000. So far, they've raised $30,000.

But they've found more pressing needs.

This year the association spent $16,000 on reconditioning shoulder pads, practice uniforms and other equipment.

"They had equipment that would have gotten them killed, it was so old," Reeves said.