Going into the 2024-25 school year, administration decided that it was essential that reforms be made to the way that clubs are funded.
The school district budget, a total of $152,943,767, is divided into sections. Among these sections are the instruction budget (for regular elementary/secondary programs, $48,307,335, and a combined district-wide, all programs total of $73,018,087), which funds the educational department budgets within the school, and the student activities budget (a combined total of $1,957,344).
In previous years, some clubs received funding through the budgets of the departments they fell under.
“For a long period of time, some of our clubs, mostly our competitive academic clubs, were funded through the regular departmental budget,” Superintendent Brad Hatch said. “For example… there was money in [the] social studies [department budget] for mock trial. That’s an audit finding…. Clubs cannot be funded through that budget, and they had been for a period of time. There were some clubs, not all, funded through departmental budgets, and that’s kind of a no-no. So, we had to make a revision to that with all clubs to make sure that they understood that, basically, student clubs had to be self-funded, which meant full fundraising and dues and whatnot, that’s how they would pay for their events and activities.”
Going into this year, advisers of clubs who were previously receiving department funding were notified there was going to be a cut to the budget they were previously allotted, but the degree of the cut was left unknown until the beginning of the school year.
“I was told in the spring of ‘24 that there was going to be a cut,” mock trial adviser Makenzie Negri said. “I didn’t know the total amount, but Mr. Saboe, the department head, said, ‘hey, there’s going to be a cut in the budget; they want you to fundraise more,’ and that’s all I was told. I didn’t know how much was going to be cut. We went from $17,250 to $500, so it was a massive cut.”
“At the beginning of the year, when I looked at our funding in our budget, we had previously had a set amount that was set aside for this department,” history department head John Saboe said. “There’s a club [mock trial] that received funding, and the money that had previously been in that particular fund for that particular organization was no longer there.”
For mock trial, the cut to funding led to the team not being able to travel to Pitt for a competition, where they were able to other years.
“We want to go to a tournament that’s one overnight: one overnight tournament at Pittsburgh,” Negri said. “We’re not asking to go to a whole bunch of tournaments and stays overnight. We’re asking for one, and the pushback is, ‘well, we’ll give you 50%,’ which I’m thankful for. It’s better than what we got this year, but it’s frustrating.”
The business education department was also notified of a reduction in funding for the school year. Business education department head Jesse Frailey met with the principals at the beginning of the year to discuss the department budget and was surprised to find the account used to fund the Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) club empty.
“Over the course of the past decade, [FBLA] has been doing it the same way, at least for as long as I’ve been part of FBLA—I think that’s about seven years back,” Frailey said. “We’ve always funded it, at least partially, through the business department. We’ve done a little bit more just because there hasn’t been as much fundraising or as much participation in fundraising. This year, that money being gone did make it more difficult just because alternative things had to happen.”
In the past, the business education department account set aside for FBLA paid for hotels, substitute teachers and other travel expenses when the club competed. The department was planning on the money in that account for this school year, and the magnitude of the cut came as a “shock.”
“In a perfect world, [the cut is] not that big of a deal,” Frailey said. “However, I think that with the sheer number of fundraisers happening at a point in time, and just the ability to have to be able to fundraise, I think that that is an issue. There is an inherent inequality there. I think that a compromise is needed. I think there will be a compromise, but I’m not a fan of the current policy.”
In addition, the Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science (PJAS) club also received cuts in club funding this school year. Club advisers Megan Kutruff and David Borst have had to adjust to the change.
“[The cut] makes it hard for our students to realize their full potential because some of them feel that they cannot participate due to the funding; they may not have the means to be able to fundraise or cover the cost,” Kutruff said.
“I realize there’s only so much money to go around, but I feel like this kind of club which brings prestige to the school and really helps our students with their futures is important,” Borst said.
Science department head Jessica Hogan wants as many students to be involved in PJAS as possible, but she also understands the upper administration’s goal to spend money set aside for curricular items on curricular activities.
“This new funding policy for the department put me in a tough spot because these are my bosses, and this is their policy, so I have to abide by it,” Hogan said. “The thing is, we want as many kids as possible involved in [PJAS]. We like clubs where kids can be involved in. I hate for fundraising to be the reason that kids wouldn’t be involved. That’s why I’ve tried to fight every year to keep putting money in there.”
PJAS president senior Andrea Slusser has participated in the club for four years. For Slusser, this policy means a “big change for the club.”
“I think [the policy has] made things more challenging,” Slusser said. “We’ve been trying to get kids involved to try to get them out of school to see new scientific opportunities, but without funding, it’s really hard to try to coordinate these kinds of trips anymore, especially having kids attend them, because sometimes [the students are] going to have to pay for themselves. A lot of them just can’t, so it’s really hard.”
Slusser believes this new decision should be reevaluated.
“Maybe not give the clubs the full scale of what they used to have, but at least a little something,” Slusser said. “When we [qualify for] state competitions and stuff like that, where kids have worked for months to try to get to that level, we really need some assistance to try to help these kids [financially] in any way that [we can].”
The English department, advised by department head Jaclyn Flick, has only covered a small amount of club funds in previous years. Competitive clubs falling under this branch of education include Scholastic Scrimmage and Speech League.
English teacher Jen Lowe oversees Scholastic Scrimmage. Although competitive, it has never been funded by the English department, rather a general club fund that helps supplement costs, but sales are done as well.
“It’s a challenge to do fundraising because so many of the same students are involved in multiple clubs,” Lowe said. “They have to do an unfair amount of fundraising, or they prefer to pay out of pocket to cover what their fair share would be.”
Fundraising acts as a way for clubs to receive their needed amount of money in order to function properly.
This year, Speech League returned after 10 years of being stagnant and is currently advised by instructional coach Julie Storm.
“We [Speech League] had to pay for our dues, which the school district covered,” Storm said. “I didn’t have very many kids. We had about five consistent members, and we used the school vans to go to our competitions. Once you pay your dues, all of [competition fees] are then paid for and the vans are free, so I didn’t have any other costs with it.”
The Speech League did not participate in any fundraisers this year. Leftover money allotted in the account from previous years was used to pay their dues.
Many advisers bring up the school’s sports teams funding. However, according to Hatch, as many sports are funded through the Big A Boosters, they can more easily receive the funding they need without requiring their athletes to fundraise.
“Athletics is funded through district budgets because it’s not a club, but they also are supported by the Big A Boosters that run the concession stand and do 50-50s and that kind of stuff,” Hatch said. “Parent groups that raise money through fundraising and whatnot help support those groups as well.”
“I’m the head junior high girls’ track and field coach, and, in the past, I’ve coached junior high volleyball, high school volleyball, as well as ninth grade girls’ basketball, for many, many years,” Negri said. “Those kids pay $50 to register to play sports, and then everything else is covered…. I appreciate that because I’m also a coach of sports, and I love when kids have opportunities. The most important thing for our students is that they have opportunities to learn and become better people by learning teamwork and cooperation and all of these things. But coming from the mock trial side of things I sometimes feel like some of our academic clubs and academic competition teams get shorted. This really goes across the board for music, drama, athletics and academic clubs. These are all opportunities for kids, and they all should be valued equally.”
“You would think that competitive clubs that are going to represent the school, such as athletics, would be funded,” Lowe said. “They haven’t had a way to fund them because it’s just not built into our budget as a school. A basketball game or football game can charge admission, so it creates another challenge for us as an academic club to represent the school. There’s no admission to our events, so it’s hard to treat us the same.”
The Lioneers dance team has never been funded regarding an athletic amount of money. Since being considered a club, fundraising supports most of their costs. Coach Julie Schmoke advises the club.
“It’s really hard when some kids can’t do fundraising because there’s possibly no one supporting them to help them raise that money in order to be a part of that club,” Schmoke said.
Though clubs’ did receive large cuts to their budgets, they are not left completely unfunded. According to Hatch, the new plan for funding clubs gives them half of the funds they need for competitions, and the other half of the needed funds have to be raised by the club.
“What we’ve committed to doing is funding 50% of [the trip to a competition], but we will never let a group of kids not go somewhere because of money,” Hatch said. “It’ll be in writing. If there was any kind of confusion as to how that’s going to work, it will be delineated very clearly as to what that looks like.”
For clubs to be able to receive funding for competitions, they must first submit a request.
“They submit a request to their appropriate assistant superintendent, which would be Mr. Harrington or Mrs. Fleegle at the elementary level, and then we would review it,” Hatch said. “We’re going to scrutinize how many kids are staying in a room, how many nights are you staying, what kind of travel were you taking? If we can cut costs, it saves the club, and it saves the district…. Some of the costs are built in; they’re fixed. Like, when you go to FBLA, you kind of buy a package, like a meal in a room package along with your registration. We want kids to have good experiences. We’re not going cheap: we want them to stay at a nice place and have enough money to get a quality meal.”
Not all requests are accepted; however. For clubs who cannot prove they can support the other half of the cost for the trip, for example, their request for funding may be denied.
“It would be situational,” Hatch said. “It’s going to depend on what the competition is. There’s an industry standard, like FBLA is run by Future Business Leaders of America. When robotics went to it’s called the BEST competition (Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology). It’s a nationally recognized competition. Mock Trial is a league…. What it comes down to is club activities cannot be funded through departmental budgets. That’s what it comes down to now and again. That being said, we’ve talked about allocating, I don’t want to say, a ‘slush fund,’ but a fund that could support some of these academic competitions and activities that go on on a requested basis for academic based clubs that are competing.”
Whether the club activities are competitive, academic or interest based, club advisers’ ultimate goal is for students to feel included.
“We want to prioritize students and make them feel like they belong to this school—to find a niche, find a place,” Lowe said. “Maybe they don’t like going to classes, but they feel connected to the school by being a part of something that’s a club.”
