Swampscott Class Events A Question Of Equity For School Committee

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — While much of high school life was suspended during the first two years of the COVID-19 health crisis, class fees at Swampscott High were still an ongoing requirement to pay for events each year as well as overall class needs such as yearbook payments that come due upon graduation.

When it came time to pay for the $85 senior class fee last year, on top of $75 fees that might not have been paid during the pandemic years — potentially a $315 lump sum payment — Swampscott High Principal Dennis Kohut said he had 17 families reach out saying they could not afford them.

Families who do not pay these dues can be denied the ability to buy a prom ticket, as well as get a cap and gown to walk in graduation, so Swampscott Superintendent Pamela Angelakis and Kohut on Thursday sought School Committee guidance on how to offset the hardships in the name of equity.

"The equity questions that are applicable to this situation are: Can everyone participate? Did we leave anyone out? And what are our blind spots?" Kohut said. "Thinking through those questions, it does raise some questions. Is this a barrier for people if they can't pay the class dues? We don't ever want to be in a situation we say to a family: 'You can't attend a prom because you can't pay the class dues.'"

Kohut said he hoped to use the "hardship waiver" used to offset athletic fees — $375 per sport with 70 percent of high school students participating in athletics — to supplement the class dues and was looking for a means to get that into the student handbook.

While some School Committee members questioned the Committee's role in setting those policies, there was a general agreement that making sure students have access to all the same school-sanctioned events and activities regardless of financial status should be a priority.

"As our district, and as all of the leadership in our district, is working on equity, and how this impacts all of our students, this is going to come up on everything really," School Committee member Amy O'Connor said. "I think the policy is that we work to ensure that everybody is included. That's also part of the work around the decisions of what these organizations are opting to do. Are these choices doable for everybody?

"If you have a big, fancy prom, and everyone is on a Coach bus, these things add up. So you have to do the work as an organization — not us — but as a student organization to determine whether can they do this and make sure that everybody is included?"

School Committee student representative Afia Bottari noted that while the dues do go toward events, some of the costs each class pays for are non-discretionary.

"It's not just for a prom, or just for an activity," she noted. "Sometimes it's to pay for other things that the seniors have to do. Like a big talk right now for the senior class is how much yearbooks cost. Yearbooks were about $30,000 to $40,000, so we decided instead of making class dues $200 to pay for that, students will buy their own yearbooks if they choose to buy them.

"But, part of our class dues is that we have to buy as a senior class a certain amount of yearbooks because one goes to one library, one goes to another library, one goes to the superintendent. There are like 20 yearbooks (that don't go to students). So class dues are not just a student activity.

"Sometimes there are things that we have to purchase and we have to fund for so everyone can be included."

Angelakis said she appreciated the School Committee's guidance and input, and that can now be discussed with the high school administrative team to develop a mechanism to create an official hardship policy.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)