Cheatham Co. Schools Shut Down Athletics

[cowboys]

Gerry the real world starts when you get out of college and have to start paying back those loans. When you have kids that you have to feed and cloth. Don't get on here preaching you would do it for free. You have no clue what it takes to be a coach. Taking away a $1500 hundred dollar supplement from some of these coaches is like taking away their kids Christmas. It is not about being selfish it is about being treated fairly. Sometimes you ahve to take a stand and you are showing every Head Coach in the state that you don't have the backbone to stand up for what is right.

 

JoeNamath you can twist and turn this to blame Republicans all you want. But at least they believe in right and wrong. At least they stand up for their beliefs. You may believe in abortion, or gay marriage, or bigger government but don't push that on everybody else. In fact it is the Democrats bigger governments that are the reason states can't fund programs to begin with. So I am asking you please support these coaches and what they are fighting for but don't turn this in to a political agenda to for your own gain.

[WrittenWord]

ballhawk and Smarty Pants... Sorry, fellers. Sports WERE my life for a long time. Did they help me? You bet they did. Would I have been a failure without them? Hardly.

 

As I said earlier, sports are important. But the way you guys try to spin it... Back in the day before organized sports in schools, reckon how in the world people ever were able to make themselves successful? I don't know how it is in Cheatham County, but I can tell you that around here, you take the top 10 percent of the class and, if you guys are right, you'd expect that they'd all be student-athletes. But they're not. Far from it, in fact.

 

I still challenge you to find something else within the system that is less important and can be cut? Sports ain't all that.

[joenamath]

Gerry the real world starts when you get out of college and have to start paying back those loans.  When you have kids that you have to feed and cloth.  Don't get on here preaching you would do it for free.  You have no clue what it takes to be a coach.  Taking away a $1500 hundred dollar supplement from some of these coaches is like taking away their kids Christmas.  It is not about being selfish it is about being treated fairly.  Sometimes you ahve to take a stand and you are showing every Head Coach in the state that you don't have the backbone to stand up for what is right. 

 

JoeNamath you can twist and turn this to blame Republicans all you want.  But at least they believe in right and wrong.  At least they stand up for their beliefs.  You may believe in abortion, or gay marriage, or bigger government but don't push that on everybody else.  In fact it is the Democrats bigger governments that are the reason states can't fund programs to begin with.  So I am asking you please support these coaches and what they are fighting for but don't turn this in to a political agenda to for your own gain.

825341980[/snapback]

 

Oh my god - this has nothing to do with gay marriage - how ridiculous.

 

NCLB may have been a Democratic idea, but the funding was cut by the Republican administration. How are schools supposed to implement all of these NCLB mandates with no federal funding which was promised to school systems for that purpose?

 

This situation really has more to do with small town politics than anything else. El Ray, I'm shocked to see your stance on the "stand-in" director. From what I've heard, she's been really good to the El Ray family lately.

[FatCat]

Written Word,

 

I'm not going to "blast" you, but I am going to try and present reasonable counter arguments.

 

1. There is some history here you are not aware of, and I don't even know all the details. But, one of the head football coaches in the county left last year because of issues with the School Board that have been going on for a few years.

 

2. They ended up cutting $9000 ($3000 from each school) and then passed the buck on to the principals. I understand that every little bit helps when you have to cut $1.3 million from the budget, but there are plenty of places the 9000 could have been cut from. This is part of a power play that is going on (refer to 1. above).

 

3. Why wasn't any money taken from other extra curricular activities?

 

4. As another poster said....you must have NO CLUE as to how much fundraising already goes on. And, to make matters worse, there is fund raising going on for just normal education, also. So, you have local kids sports doing fund raisers, school sports doing fund raisers, schools doing fund raisers, cheerleaders doing fund raisers, bands doing fund raisers, etc., etc., etc. People are fund raisered out!!!

 

5. This whole situation is a political power play. Tell me that they couldn't find $9000 to cut from the admin. Why don't they get the $9000 out of all the folks who work in the School District HQ. If there are 30 people, then that would be $300 each, or $25 a month.

 

6. Again, as someone has already posted, football, baseball, volleyball, track, wrestling, etc., teach you a lot of things that cannot be learned in a classroom. There is a lot more to life than being "book smart".

 

7. Personally, I'd much rather cut the meals program than athletics, or any other extracurricular activity. If you want to do a fund raiser, why don't we do a fund raiser to feed the hungry children. I don't believe much in the welfare system as it stands right now. I believe in helping the unfortunate, but I do not believe in helping those who refuse to help themselves.

 

This issue goes way beyond focusing on the classroom. Education happens in many, many aspects of the School System. The classroom is just one of those areas. This issue is about a power play and someone proving they are in charge.

 

That said, even if all coach's supplements were cut this year, I would support the idea that all the coaches in all sports ought to finish out this school year. But, they should also give all their athletes a heads up that next year they will not coach and that they ought to take the time to consider moving to another county if they can. To quit right now would be unfair. I agree a stand has to be made, but make it next year and the year after that. Don't do it this year when these kids can't do anything about it.

[ELA]

I have a question: You guys who say that NCLB is the reason for financial crisis in schools... Can you tell me how NCLB has cost the schools additional monies?

 

As for "voting out Bush" because of NCLB, let's not forget that NCLB was actually a brainchild of the Democrats. The Bush administration took it and ran with it, but NCLB would have become reality with or without a Republican administration in the White House.

 

Now I've seen plenty of griping and moaning over the past 10 pages of posts about cutting athletics. People say the board doesn't care about the kids, they're stabbing their own children who are coaches in the back, etc. etc. etc. No one knows the board members. You don't know what they're going through. It's probably a safe bet that there's a lot of hand-wrangling going on behind the scenes and a lot of sleepless nights as these board members try to figure out a way to pull themselves out of the budget crisis without cutting necessary services.

 

But the parents and fans don't care about that. All they care about are hearing the words "sports" and "cuts" in the same sentence. And then everyone throws a fit. The fact is that the board has to find some way to cut $1.3 million. I don't know what Cheatham County's budget is like, but I have seen plenty of budgets from school districts around this state and I can tell you that all the cuts won't come from the same area. If they can save only $30,000 from cutting out coaches' salaries, then that's $30,000 that they can subtract from the original $1.3 million.

 

No one wants to see sports cut, but ask yourself this: What CAN be cut? The fact is that something MUST be cut. And while I wouldn't try to say for a minute that sports aren't important, because they certainly are, can you tell me anything else within the school system that is less important that can be cut?

 

If it comes down to sports or transportation, which you going to cut? If it comes down to sports or the meals program, which you going to cut? If it comes down to sports or teachers, and sticking 35-40 kids in a classroom, which you going to cut?

 

Sports aren't THAT important, my friends. Everyone complains because sports are always the first to get mentioned in a budget shortfall. There's an obvious reason for that, and no it's not because they're making sports a scapegoat or trying to stir emotions. Sports are extra-curricular activities. Period. They play a very important role, as do other extra-curricular activities, but they aren't that important. When you start having a problem paying the bills, you cut the extra-curricular activities first, while maintaining the level of the quality of education for the kids.

 

Many of you would have the quality of education go down the drain just to avoid having the football program cut for a couple years. You better wake up and smell the roses. Our kids' education is far more important than sports. And if the spelling of a couple of these posts are any indication, that education is sorely needed.

 

Fact is, there is no easy way out. No one wants to see sports cut and the kids lose out, but it might have to happen. Instead of sitting around griping, why doesn't everyone get together and take action? And I don't mean by going down and crowding the meeting room at the school board session. That ain't going to get anything accomplished. Do you have a booster's club? If not, start one. If you do, start fundraisers. There's a million different ways to raise plenty of money to fund the coaches' salaries. While you're at it, you might speak to the coaches about volunteering for a year or two if that's what it takes. Coaches are way over-utilized for the money they receive already. But if it truly is for the kids, they should be willing to make some short-term sacrifices.

 

But the bottom line is that there's going to have to be some revenue raised in that county. And that means additional taxes. If what I'm reading is correct, there have been past attempts to instate a wheel tax and it hasn't worked? If that's true, this sounds like a classic example of that age-old addage, "have your cake and eat it too."

 

I'll step aside now and let everyone bash on me a bit. 

825341904[/snapback]

 

The original plan doesn't even look like what the Bush Administration did to NCLB. Even the name changed and has almost nothing to do with the law as it was written. THIS WAS A REPUBLICAN BILL WITH A LOT OF DEMOCRATIC SUPPORT. The President made it his own "high water mark!" Now national politics aside...

 

NCLB is costing school systems millions of dollars. Ask anyone who serves on a school board or in an administration and they will tell you we are just at the beginning of the costs that will come down the road. Every single school board in the nation will face these problems at some time because there simply isn't enough money coming down from the feds to pay for the changes that are required by the law!

[hawaii]

Man, this is messed up. A power hungry chairman. A district that should vote him off the board. And an interim director that may (or may not, I don't know the person) be afraid to take a position.

 

 

Please answer this. $3,000 cut per school. But how is the cut? $1,000 from football, basketball and baseball or what?

 

Or just left up to the principal?

[Smarty Pants]

Probably your job, written word. LOL!

 

How about unneccesary expenses for travel by those in charge? How about the excessive secretaries in the central office? What about shaving some from band expenses if they do cut from sports? What about other extra-curriculars other than sports such as choir, if they cut from sports also?

 

Spread the wealth of the cuts more fairly is all I'm saying.

 

And yes sports do make a difference. Check out the top 20 at Cheatham and Sycamore from last year and see how many were athletes; 11 at CCCHS and 14 at SHS.

Edited September 15, 2004 by Smarty Pants

[cowboys]

I will tell you some things that can be cut. Cut the spending on things like Gateway testing which is worthless. Cut down the millions of dollars that Special Education costs every school system every year. The difference is they have some one fighting for them while the everyday common kid gets screwed. Cut out the thousands of dollars spent on discipline problems with these dead weight kids that do nothing but cause problems. If we are going to give up on any group of kids why give up on the athlete that gives his or her own time to the program. Or all the "specialist" that get hired at the central office to monitor the different projects. The cuts started with things like Horticulture, automechanics, etc and now they are gone so they are going after sports. Cut the money that the board members from every county use 2-3 times a year to meet in Nashville. I promise you they don't pay for their own meals and hotel rooms. Cut 5-6 thousand from superintendants salary. Bet he/she wouldn't let that fly. Fat Cat is exactly right the parents and students are fund raised out. Maybe the systems should get out and beat the streets to fund raise for the system. Looks to me that if the county could do something like the wheel tax but call it the school tax. Make it $10 for every person then problem would be solved.

[ddaddy]

"SPORTS ARE THAT IMPORTANT" By Writtenword is the most ignorant (defined as; exhibiting a lack of knowledge) statement I've every heard. I'll bet the writtenword was the kid that was the last one picked on the playground or a less than average player who thought they were a superstar and it was the coaches fault. If someone can't see the importance of athletics in our troubled society then ignorant is the only work that can be used to described them.

[ELA]

I will tell you some things that can be cut.  Cut the spending on things like Gateway testing which is worthless.  Cut down the millions of dollars that Special Education costs every school system every year.  The difference is they have some one fighting for them while the everyday common kid gets screwed.  Cut out the thousands of dollars spent on discipline problems with these dead weight kids that do nothing but cause problems.  If we are going to give up on any group of kids why give up on the athlete that gives his or her own time to the program.  Or all the "specialist" that get hired at the central office to monitor the different projects.  The cuts started with things like Horticulture, automechanics, etc and now they are gone so they are going after sports.  Cut the money that the board members from every county use 2-3 times a year to meet in Nashville.  I promise you they don't pay for their own meals and hotel rooms.  Cut 5-6 thousand from superintendants salary.  Bet he/she wouldn't let that fly.  Fat Cat is exactly right the parents and students are fund raised out.  Maybe the systems should get out and beat the streets to fund raise for the system.  Looks to me that if the county could do something like the wheel tax but call it the school tax.  Make it $10 for every person then problem would be solved.

825342092[/snapback]

 

Some good ideas... Too bad we can't charge $75 per student or $150 per family per year. That would raise a lot of money to help offset costs but it will never happen!

[El Rey]

El Rey

 

As long as students are provided for, who cares how much tax money is involved.  I would rather pay taxes than have no job at all.  I would rather my kids have programs like athletics, art, and music.  We don't pay a lot of taxes in Tennessee; it's people like you that have caused the problems we have.  People that are only worried about their own wallets.

825341978[/snapback]

I care how much tax money is being taken out of my wallet and going towards wasteful spending at the board office. You would rather pay taxes than have no job at all... THATS CALLED COMMUNISM! People like me would rather make changes to the system rather than put more money into it and hope the problem goes away.

 

Cowboy... you need to be in office.

 

This thread is going downhill.

[WashedUp]

Amen to "Cowboy". I am fortunate to work in a county where our school board and director of schools is incredibly supportive of all extra-curricular activities. I count my blessings for that everyday. I sympathize with all the coaches of Cheatam County. The powers-that-be need to come off their pocket books and raise local taxes in some way to fund these necessary works. As a coach, I know first hand what would happen to my athletes if sports were cut. 50% of them would never graduate from high school. Sports helps keeps these types of kids focused on their education. They understand the concept of "no pass - no play". A lot of these kids are not as fortunate as a lot of us were. If I brought home poor grades my dad would kick my tail. That was my incentive to do well in school. Many of these kids do not have that influence at home. Without some sort of incentive, many would quit trying. It is my hope that the good people of Cheateam Co. will find a way to continue this necessary work for the sake of the children.

 

Oh, to Gerry Bertier: get married, have children, buy a house, buy a car or two, pay for daycare, pay all the other bills, prepare for retirement, pay for birthdays and Christmas, then and only then can you have an opinion on the matter!!!

Edited September 15, 2004 by WashedUp