Schools
District 202 Students Will Have to 'Pay to Participate' Starting Next Fall
Students who aren't current on fees or payment plans won't be able to take part in sports, prom or other important activities.
Starting next school year, if you want to take part in sports — or other big activities like prom or driver's ed — in District 202, you'd better pay up.
On May 28, school board members voted to approve a new policy that will require District 202 students to pay all their fees in full or be current on fee payment plans to participate in athletics or certain important events.
The proposal was first brought before the board in January, when the district was already looking at more than $172,000 in unpaid athletic fees from the start of the 2012-13 school year, according to Assistant Superintendent for Business and Operations Angie Smith.
Now, students whose fees go unpaid or who are not current on their payment plans will not be able to take part in the following:
- Athletics
- Prom
- High school graduation/eighth-grade promotion ceremonies
- Behind-the-wheel portion of driver's education
"The district understands the financial struggles facing many families and has created several options to help families pay their fees. Those options include income and hardship-based fee waivers and reductions, and extended payment plans," the district said in a press release issued in late May. The policy is aimed at lowering the amount of unpaid fees, according to officials, who said District 202 has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid student and athletic fees in recent years.
Before the new policy was put in place, the district's only options for penalizing families with unpaid fees was to withhold participation in prom, eighth-grade promotions and high school graduation ceremonies.
"Letting some families not pay their fees is unfair to the district, which faces a projected $1.8 million operating fund deficit despite four years of heavy budget cuts, thanks to the state’s financial problems," the district said in the release.
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