eakers. Video games. A drone. An indoor grill. A dozen boxes of chicken nuggets. There are so many items worth spending fifty dollars on. Is an extracurricular activity really one of them?
FCPS has instituted a new activities fee as part of the FCPS FY 2018 Approved Budget, in addition to the AP test fees. The activities fee covers all extracurricular activities that don’t award any academic credit, such as after school clubs and sports. It’s a one-time, nonrefundable payment that remains the same regardless of the number of activities that students participate in.
Parents and students, however, have reason to complain. While students on free and reduced-price meal plans won’t have to pay the fee, for those who do, it is still unnecessarily expensive. FCPS has survived without this activities fee for over a century, so the sudden implementation of this policy is surprising.
For many students, clubs and athletics have been as much of a part of their school life as academics. While grades are certainly looked at by colleges, it’s the extracurricular activities that students participate in and their involvement in the community that really distinguishes the average kid from the well-rounded individual. On the surface, participation in clubs and athletics seems to be optional, but it can really define high school and college careers and help direct future routes by appealing to different interests.
Interest clubs like Anime Club, Art Club, Crew, Debate, and various student associations bring people of similar interests together to have fun doing what they love, but is it really worth paying $50 to enjoy simple pleasures that could just as easily be achieved outside of school for free? Athletes whose lives revolve around sports and who hope for athletic scholarships in college will now have to pay just to play the sport, even when their victories against other schools already bring glory to their school that can’t be tagged with a price. It’s just unfair that students who try to balance academics and activities aren’t rewarded but are instead forced to pay.
Granted, the money collected from the fee goes towards funding various types of education and student transportation. The majority of the budget is allocated towards instructional programs and teacher salaries. The teachers we know and love deserve an increase in their pay for everything they do, but perhaps it could be achieved in a different way than the current system.