SEQUIM — At least one student is already considering the possibility of leaving the Sequim School District if a May 18 maintenance and operations tax levy fails.
“It would almost be not worth going to school,” Noah Brasher, a sophomore on the Wolves’ varsity soccer team, said Wednesday.
“I might even think about transferring over to a different school to play sports.”
Brasher and every other athlete in the school district — at both the middle and high school levels — will be drastically affected if voters fail to approve the two-year, $5.16 million levy.
The all-mail election will determine whether students at Sequim Middle School and Sequim High School enter an era without extracurricular activities.
The School Board decided on the cuts late Monday night.
Sixty percent of voters in the school district need to approve the replacement levy, which is slightly smaller than the $5.44 million levy that failed with about 58 percent of the vote in February.
‘All a little numb’
“I guess we’re all a little numb right now,” Sequim High School Athletic Director Chris Olson said Wednesday.
“I’m just trying to digest it and absorb it.”
DeDe Juliussen in the school district’s business office said the district spends $287,269 annually on middle and high school sports, not including intramural athletics (middle school only) and cheerleading (high school only). Those events cost an additional $8,336 and $4,489 respectively, she said.
Olson said if the levy fails, any attempt to replace funds based on students paying to participate would need to be approved by the School Board.
High school students paid $100 a sport with a $300 per family cap when athletic funding was curtailed during the 2001-2002 school year in the wake of another failed levy.
Middle school athletes paid $25 a sport that year.
“I just thought we learned our lesson a couple of years ago when we didn’t pass it,” Vann Brasher, a Sequim High senior and Noah’s older brother, said Wednesday.
“I don’t know what happened. People must have forgotten.”
