PORT TOWNSEND — After a one-year absence, competitive team sports are expected to resume at Blue Heron Middle School during the 2012-2013 school year.
“With all the budget cuts, schools were looking to cut programs, and they could no longer afford athletics,” said Mark Grant, a spokesman for Team Port Townsend, which is raising money for the programs with the Redskins Booster Club.
“We think we can raise the funds necessary to support a sustainable program.”
Sports were discontinued in June at the end of the 2010-2011 school year, ending some 15 years of sports at the school, as a cost-saving measure.
It was a controversial decision.
In January, about 60 people attended a special Port Townsend School Board meeting to urge the board to support resumption of team sports for seventh- and eighth-grade students at the middle school.
In December, two Blue Heron Middle School students — Amelia Grant and Maryn Moegling — submitted a petition with 109 signatures from students and parents to the school’s principal requesting that competitive team sports be reinstated.
The district is committed to pay $25,000 for each of the next two school years to support Blue Heron teams in football, cross-country, volleyball, basketball, wrestling and track, said Superintendent Gene Laes last week of the administrative decision.
Laes said state cuts “didn’t go as deep” as the district predicted and that $50,000 can be allocated out of upcoming budgets.
If the programs are more expensive than predicted the district will not make up the difference, Laes said.
“We will give them $25,000 a year and no more,” he said.
“There are several other programs and interest groups that have been cut, and we are looking to restore them, along with athletics,” he added.
These include administrative, clerical and counseling positions, he said.
The district has more money in the general fund for programs since voters approved in February a four-year capital levy that will generate $1,181,500 each year for a total of $4,726,000.
The property tax levy will go toward facilities and technology, freeing money that had been devoted to such improvements for other items, said School Board President Jennifer James-Wilson.
“It doesn’t directly help with the sports program,” she said, but since “all of those repairs were coming out of the general fund, this releases the vice grip on the general fund” and gives the district more flexibility.
Team Port Townsend has pledged to make up the difference between the district’s contribution and the total cost of the athletic program, estimated at between $60,000 and $80,000, to support team sports, which would include fielding a football team.
Team Port Townsend and the Redskins Booster Club can easily raise the rest of the needed funds, Grant said.
He said it was “not possible” that the fundraising goal would not be met.
“I know we can raise this money,” he said.
“I do not have any doubt about this.”
The clubs already have several planned fundraising options.
Team Port Townsend is offering $60 memberships, with the entire amount allocated to supporting the school’s athletic program.
A spaghetti feed is planned for 6 p.m. Saturday, March 10, at the Elks Lodge, 55 Otto St., Port Townsend.
The $7 admission will include a no-host bar. Donations above the admission cost will be solicited.
Grant said the organization stands to collect between $10,000 and $30,000 at the event.
Grant said he understood why the district made the original decision to cut sports programs.
“They were in the middle of a perfect storm of state money being cut and the need to cut budgets,” he said.
“But this isn’t just about sports; there is a whole dynamic at work here where sports is as critical as reading, writing and arithmetic.
“Participation in sports require good grades and attendance and keeps kids physically healthy.”
Tom Kent, interim Blue Heron principal, said he did not know any specifics about the program’s reinstatement but that Laes had informed him athletics would return the next school year.
Kent said Laes instructed him to find out about the next meeting of regional athletic directors and decide which representatives of Blue Heron would attend.
Since competitive sports programs were eliminated at the school, the Jefferson County YMCA has sponsored after-school intramural programs.
Kent expects this to continue and said the two programs serve different students.
“What people forget about sports programs is that they are only for seventh- and eighth-graders, while the Y serves all grades,” he said.
Blue Heron has students from fourth to eighth grade.
Blue Heron science teacher Roger Mills said he supported re-establishing sports, but not at the expense of academic programs.
“I am concerned with the overall quality of life for students in the building,” he said.
“If you have 10 percent of the kids who do sports and 10 percent who need special-education programs, who needs the money more if you can’t do both?”
Mills said team sports teach students to interact but feels “there are other ways that you can learn teamwork.”
Grant said anyone who does not have the money to contribute or who wants to go the extra mile can volunteer in a number of areas.
“There are a lot of things we need to do to get people involved in this,” he said.
Donations can be mailed to the Redskins Booster Club, P.O. Box 1219, Port Townsend, WA 98368.
For more information, contact Grant at 360-379-3236 or grantgc@olympus.net.
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
