$150 Fee Sparks Debate At Princeton School Board Meeting

PRINCETON, NJ — Princeton Public Schools Superintendent Michael LaSusa on Tuesday addressed concerns over a new $150 extracurricular activity fee set to take effect at the high school this coming school year, responding to a student who raised the issue during public comment at a school board meeting.

Student Eva Larsen told the board they had missed an earlier discussion on the fee and wanted to raise concerns publicly. Larsen said the fee, as proposed, combines athletics and club participation into a single board-funded category, despite differences in how students sign up and how much each activity costs.

The 11th grader said athletics require formal tryouts, while club participation is typically handled through a club fair sign-up process, with many students who sign up never attending meetings. The student also said athletic programs carry higher costs, including equipment, coaching and gear, while many clubs require little to no transportation and lower-cost coaching.

Larsen proposed separating the fee structure for clubs from that of athletics, allowing students to designate which club receives their fee directly, rather than funds going into a combined pool for both athletics and clubs. They also asked that clubs be able to access their funding quickly once fees are collected, citing prior complications with the funding system.

LaSusa said the idea of grading fees according to the cost of each specific activity has been discussed by school districts across New Jersey as more districts introduce activity fees, but said implementing that level of granularity across hundreds of activities would be difficult to manage and would require additional staff resources to track attendance and expenses for each one.

He said most districts, including Princeton, opt instead for a flat, one-time fee that averages out costs across activities of varying expense, rather than assessing fees on a per-club or per-activity basis.

LaSusa said the fee originated from this year's budget discussions, in which revenue did not meet expenses, and the board set a target of $200,000 in fee revenue as part of the 2026-27 budget. He said assessing a flat fee at the middle school and high school was the most straightforward and commonly used approach among New Jersey districts.

LaSusa said questions about what counts as club "membership" or "attendance" will need to be addressed, noting that some high school clubs are informal and carry no district cost, while others are more formalized with a paid advisor but open attendance policies that are not closely tracked.

He said the district's immediate goal is to generate the budgeted $200,000 in fee revenue to avoid reducing programming, adding that budget challenges are likely to worsen next school year due to the state aid and health benefits outlook. He said the district will continue to monitor the fees' implementation as the school year unfolds and is currently in the process of collecting the fees.

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