District to students: Pay to play
By ROBERT LINNEHAN
The Cherry Hill Sun
9/5/2010

Families of middle and high school students in the district will see a student activity fee this year.

In a unanimous vote – although Board member Sherri Cohen was not in attendance – the new policy passed.

Families will pay $80 per high school student and $70 per middle school student with a max family cap of $150.

Students who want to participate in any extracurricular programming, which includes the prom for high school students, will be required to pay the activity fee. It is an annual fee and permits students to participate in all activities.

Any student eligible for free or discounted lunches will not be required to pay the activity fee.

Cherry Hill East student representative Jonathan Silverstone asked the Board where the student activity fees would be utilized in the budget. The fees will be spread out evenly to support all student activities, extracurricular events, and programs that require a teacher to receive a stipend, Assistant Superintendent James Gallagher said.

The policy is still being discussed, Gallagher said, but by week’s end, packets and a letter from the superintendent will be mailed to families throughout Cherry Hill detailing the policy.

The district is still discussing several aspects of the policy though, he said. For example, for a club like the East Singers, does the district collect a fee from that group if students participating in the club get course credit and a grade?

These matters will have to be ironed out before the school year, he said.

A resident at the meeting criticized the Board’s decision to pass the new policy so close to the beginning of the school year. Board member Steve Robbins defended the timeliness of the increase and stated that the possibility of an increase was discussed at length during the Board’s discussion of the 2010-2011 budget.

“All decisions about the student activity fee were made in committees that were open to the public and not behind closed doors,” he said.

In a perfect world, Robbins said, the policy would have been approved sooner.