School event costs deter attendance Unecessary ticket charges acummulate to discourage community support

By Grace Ryan News Editor

Students and families choose public schools for a variety of reasons, but a common reason is the reduced expenses compared to private schools. At all schools, high school events such as proms, dances, film festivals, pep rallies and sports games form some of the most cherished high school memories, but the cost of visiting these events can add up. These costs can be discouraging, but the cost of these events should not inhibit the enjoyment of the landmarks of high school from both those attending the events nor the clubs and sports that want the support of the community. These small attendance expenses are often necessary to support the school’s clubs and athletics, but the cost ends up deterringattendanceamongstudents.In my experience during this time where school spirit is lacking, costs only make matters worse. Family and community support energizes teams and clubs, but attendance costs end up dispiriting the club and athletics community. Although ideally students should not allow costs to dictate their attendance and enjoyment, most students do not have a lot of money especially with their busy lives while trying to save up for their futures.

Attending games and events can add up over the course of the year, but costs for events and being an active member of the WHS community should not take away from the often already low account of students.

As a Student Council Member, I can see both sides of the argument: clubs need money to run events, but costs strongly discourage attendance. For example, many students complain about the costs of the hypnotist event over the past couple of years, and some students did not come because they did not think the hypnotist would be worth it. Those students who attended disagreed with these other students after experiencing it, but some would never be able to prove otherwise because they did not come. From the club’s point of view, enough students had to come in order to pay for the hypnotist. In order for clubs to fulfill their purpose at the high school and put on fun events, money and attendance costs are required. This may place clubs in a difficult situation as they face the impact of students not always wanting to participate because of the costs.

Beyond Student Council events, other club’s events need event attendance to be successful, especially if they only hold one event a year, such as Dance Company and the Film Festival. Both these club events would not be the same without the support and attendance of the community. More money needs to be provided to clubs—whether from the school, the town or the state—so that they can reduce costs of attendance and run events to their fullest potential. When clubs organize events, they often must estimate and consider the amount who will attend in order to figure out the pricing. When less people attend, the costs only increase.

Unlike many club events that target only students, the costs of sports games are more significant and unfair because of the cost it places on families.

Club sports, if students so chose to participate, can place a heavy cost on the family because of entry fees to tournaments and traveling fees, but public school sports should not be the same.

Tickets to high school sports pay for much needed aspects of the sport such as referees and transportation. However, not all sports require tickets for entry. Not including playoffs, only football, hockey and basketball require attendants to buy tickets regularly—at least in Walpole. Some families are forced to make much largercontributionstoathleticsinWalpole, while others can attend games for free.

Every athlete must pay $225 a season and athletes only receive a discount to a cost of $50 for their third season. However, families, under the impression that they must pay $225 for their child to compete, must often double that amount in order to support their child, especially for sports that require tickets for attendance.

Considering hockey and basketball have 20-game seasons, parents are forced to pay $5 to attend, leading to a $200 regular season total, not including any siblings nor other relatives attending. Beyond ticket sales, families must also support the team with booster fundraisers and potentially even team dinners so the costs can easily surpass $500. Because of a fee to play, as well as donations and other costs, families supporting their children by attendending games should not be a cost. Families often pay the bill for their child to play a sport, so not being able to afford to watch their child play would not be fair to them. Families already pay enough time, effort and money to support their children.

In order to solve these problems, families should have family passes, at least for immediate family, and students should have season passes that cost a flat rate for the season or school year that will incentivize going to games. For example, if the students pay $25 for the winter season, they would have to go to 5 games to get their money’s worth.

From personal experience, not only does support from the communityincreasetheenergyandfunof the game, but it can also deeply affect the game, such as during free throws. At home, the WHS student section should outnumber the away student section, but this has not always been the case. If season passes are created and costs are cut, that would help solve the school spirit problems. Although I understand that money and resources can be sparse in general, I think more efforts need to be taken to reduce the costs of attendance in consideration of the falling school spirit, importance of high school memories, the significant costs if choose to attend a large amount of events and the other costs that high schoolers and families already have to consider. This issue of costs for attendance goes beyond WHS, but we can at least make an effort to support our club’s events and our sport’s games. I understand that resources are needed behind the scenes, but students supporting students and families supporting their children matters the most. Many people, especially students, just complain about money. I understand that. But for families, especially, and students who go to numerous events in a year, this money can add up and therefore can become a burden when they should not be.