Repeal The Activities Fees

To the Editor:

The activity fees are a bad idea. That point was eloquently made in The Bee’s front page editorial last week. It was made by the angry students at the high school and by their courageous advisors. It was made in the letters to the editor by recent alumni of the high school. Activity fees penalize the less affluent. They can strangle extracurricular activities by discouraging student participation. Forty dollars may not seem like much to families of students already committed to an activity, but forty dollars is enough to discourage a student who may not be certain whether or not to try a new activity or explore a new interest. By weeding out the less committed students, threatening the existence of clubs and activities, the activity fees threaten the social and cultural development of the young people of this town, who would not have enough interesting things to do if they didn’t have access to the thriving extracurricular culture our schools currently offer. The high school dramatic and musical productions are miracles of talent and teamwork. I’ve never heard of anything like them in any other town. The idea that we would threaten these and other student activities in order to generate a few tens of thousands of dollars in a town as large and as comparatively comfortable as this makes me sick.

The Board of Education is right to complain that not enough noise was made about this in the spring. I don’t know why or how this all slipped through. Perhaps not enough people were paying attention, at the end of a school year, and after two demoralizing defeats of sound and frugal town budgets. My guess is that the board was understandably looking for anything, anything to make up for the lost revenue and they and we became convinced that no harm would be done if the parents of participants were to assume the entire cost of a vital aspect of the educational system, and our town’s culture. There’s no point in assigning blame. Everyone was working in good faith with a bad situation. But sometimes, in circumstances like this, a decision gets made that would not have been made if everyone had thought about it at greater length and in greater detail. I hope it is not too late to do something about this. I hope that the fees can be repealed. If not, I hope that this is the last year Newtown imposes this regressive and destructive tax upon the energy and creativity of its young people.

Dana Brand

5 Bradley Lane, Sandy Hook                                   October 22, 2003