PAL to run school sports, clubs

Students and faculty in the Howell K-8 School District heading back to school this week will find things have changed quite a bit since they left in June.

“The staff is going to try and make it all work,” Howell Superintendent of Schools Enid Golden said a few days before the Sept. 2 opening day. “We’re just concerned. We think we’ve had excellent services and now we are doing more with less.”

Enrollment is hovering around 6,657 pupils, down about 135 students from last year, which is no surprise to Golden.

“We’ve been on a declining enrollment trend,” she said. “That’s just par for that. That’s the reason we closed the Southard School” at the end of the 2008-09 school year.

There will be fewer supervisors, guidance counselors and teachers in the district during the 2010-11 school year. And parents will have to pay for their children to play sports or join school clubs.

“We are concerned that we have overburdened our supervisory staff because they have picked up additional supervisory responsibilities,” Golden said. “We have cut back on guidance counselors in every building.”

All told, 83.5 positions were eliminated for the 2010-11 school year, including five vice principals/supervisors, one vice principal/ athletic director position, four media specialists in the elementary schools, seven media assistants, two substance abuse coordinators, several guidance counselor positions, special education teacher assistants, two nurse positions, elementary school social worker positions and custodial positions.

A record number of teachers also decided to retire following the 2009-10 school year.

In making plans for the 2010-11 school year, administrators decided the district could no longer afford to pay for afterschool sports, clubs and other extra-curricular activities.

The Board of Education decided at its Aug. 25 meeting to let the Howell Police Athletic League (PAL) run the school district’s sports and co-curricular activities.

“They are still charging” for participation, Golden said. “We are not happy parents have to pay, but the PAL came in [with a contract proposal] that was under what we would have had to charge.”

For example, if the district was running the pay-to-play sports programs, it would have cost a student $620 to play interscholastic middle school basketball this year.T

he PAL will instead charge $450 for basketball, the superintendent said.

The lower cost for basketball results from increasing the minimum number of students required to field a middle school team from 12 to 15 players.

Board members also agreed to allow Joanne Vero of Freehold-based J. Vero and Associates to search for corporate sponsorships to possibly lower the cost of sports and co-curricular activities even further, Golden said.

“We are hoping she will make good on what she says she is going to do,” the superintendent said.

Whatever money Vero is able to bring in will help offset the costs of the PAL programs, Golden said.

“She will get 20 percent of what she brings in,” the superintendent said. “She is pretty convinced she can cover the cost of the programs. Anything she brings in will offset the cost to the parents. She thinks she can turn things around pretty quickly. We have to give that a shot.”

The school district is not paying PAL anything to run the sports or clubs, Golden said.

“PAL is running the program like a separate business and they will be charging the parents,” she said. “Money is not coming to us or from us. PAL is also working something out to find a way not to [have to] charge for student council, peer tutoring and the literary magazine. We are hoping they come through with that.”

PAL does not anticipate having any problem meeting the minimum enrollments for sports or clubs, Howell Police Department Cpl. Harold Foley said on Aug. 30.

“We don’t think that will be an issue,” he said.

PAL anticipates a nearly “seamless” transition, since the nonprofit organization recently hired former Howell K-8 athletic director Joseph Fiore to manage the programs.

And whoever has a spot on a team is guaranteed playing time, Foley said.

“That is one thing we factored in,” he said. “If someone has to pay to be on the team, we will be sharing playing time.”

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