Oak Park : Parents Plead to Spare School Sports

About 15 parents and students from the Oak Park Unified School District pleaded with the school board this week to spare the high school’s athletics budget from funding cuts next year.

The lobbying effort was sparked by the school board’s review of the high school’s $200,000 sports budget.

Board members said they have no plans at this time to reduce funding for the program.

“We just wanted to review it because it’s hard to tell where the money’s going,” board member Wayne Blasman said at Tuesday’s meeting.

But school officials warned that if the state drastically cuts school funding for next year, all the district’s programs would suffer, including athletics.

Stan Mantooth, the district’s director of administrative services, warned the board that the state could cut school funding by as much as 8%, which would reduce the Oak Park district’s revenues by $609,000.

The district has about $800,000 in reserves. But if the state heavily cuts school funding, Oak Park school officials may decide to cut some programs next year rather than deplete their savings, Mantooth said.

The district pays about $100,000, or half of the total costs, for the high school’s sports program.

The rest of the money for the program comes from the high school booster club and other sources.

Supporters of the program sought to persuade the board at Tuesday’s meeting that reducing funding for athletics would hurt students as much as cutting an academic program.

Mike Banks, who is graduating from the high school this year, told the board that “my grades were always better when I was in a sport because I was in a structured program and the coaches and teachers were always pushing me.”