Low-income students at Grayslake Community Consolidated School District 46 schools may not have to pay as much to participate in athletics or music programs.
One of the district’s six schools already offers but does not advertise a 60 percent discount on the fee of one after-school program for students that qualify for the free or reduced-price lunch program, Superintendent Ellen Correll said. Qualifying students at both schools get waivers on in-school activities like field trips.
The school board is set to vote at an upcoming meeting on whether to expand that to both of the schools that serve middle school-aged students, and discussion at a recent school board meeting included no objections to the proposal.
Board member David Northern said he wanted to see the requests be written, though, instead of verbal so that the district had a written record of which students received which discounts and why the principal may have chosen to waive the entire fee.
The fees, which range from $50 to participate in stage crew for a play or musical to $275 for basketball, are designed to offset the cost the program, though both middle schools operate their programs at an overall deficit. According to board documents, the shortfalls ran about $11,000 at Park Campus last year and about $12,000 at Grayslake Middle School.
The district’s fees tend to run higher than other area districts, Correll said.
The CCSD 46 school board also considered a proposal that would have added a registration fee to each grade, kindergarten through eighth, to cover the cost of the discounts, but Correll noted that the addition would mean families that don’t participate in after-school programs would be subsidizing those that do.
The benefit of encouraging more kids to get involved is that students who participate in after-school programs tend to have fewer behavior problems in the classroom, Correll said.
Twitter @mekcoleman
