Cuts In Clarkstown School Athletics Argued at School Board

Although the Clarkstown Central School District's budget was overwhelmingly approved by the public in May, district families are starting to see the impact of cuts that were made to scholastic sports programs - and some of them aren't happy with what they're seeing.

The school board heard from those families at its meeting Thursday night.

"We need to keep sports at the schools," said Dan Annunziato of Bardonia, who has three children, one at Bardonia Elementary School, one at Felix V. Festa Middle School and another at Clarkstown High School South. "They give kids something to do after school, it's exercise and can keep them from getting into trouble."

The biggest proponent of trying to get back some funds for athletics on the school board was board member Kevin Grogan.

"The bottom line is we need to keep our sports funded," he said. "If we have any extra money in our budget, we should use it to keep out teams funded."

Board President Phillip DeGaetano didn't agree with that sentiment.

"I'm a big supporter of sports, but if we have extra money in the budget, I'm going to put it back into the classroom before out on the field," he said.

Board member Joe Malgieri sided with DeGaetano.

"We have teachers and TAs out of work right," he said. "We should be more concerned with finding them work."

With the cuts in the budget, all freshmen sports at the high schools were eliminated, some paid assistant coaches for varsity sports could not continue to get paid, modified ice hockey and gymnastics were cut from the middle school. At the middle school, where there were two teams - one for students bound for Clarkstown North High School and one for students bound for South - the will now only be one team.

"Nobody wants to see those programs not come back," board member Donna Ehrenberg said. "The decision was excruciating for all of us. [Are the athletics] what we used to have? No. Are some of our education programs what we used to have? No."

 Annunziato suggested seeking out volunteer coaches for teams, noting that while in college he volunteered to coach school sports.

"Hopefully the parents will step up and get involved, because we need it," Ehrenberg said.

But Annunziato suggested looking out to the community for volunteer coaches.

"The one thing when you look to parents to coach, is you're setting yourself up for a potentially large conflict of interest, like with issues of possible favoritism and things like that," he said. "We have local colleges we can look to for people who maybe want to go into teaching one day and want experience with kids, or people who want to coach later in life."

Jeff Sobel, the director of personnel, said volunteer coaches must be approved by the board and meet all the qualifications of a coach as put forth by New York state.

Not only would it be a financial issue trying to get back funds for athletics, but many board members feel trying to do that would go against the people of Clarkstown.

"This budget is what the community voted for, and this is what we have to stick with," Ehrenberg said. "This is what the community overwhelmingly voted for."

Back on May 19, the budget was approved by 69 percent of voters after a long review process that saw the district look for ways to limit cuts to edcuational services.

"I don't see how we can slap the public in the face and go back on what we already did," Malgieri said.

 DeGaetano urged that the budget passed in May was the right decision.

"We made decisions in May, April, March. We worked hard on those decisions," he said. "I believe the decisions we made then are right for today, and I believe they are the right decisions for 10 years from now."

Everyone who spoke acknowledged the issue doesn't have a clear cut fix.

"I'm a big supporter of sports, but I also represent the teachers," said Greg Montague, the president of the Clarkstown Teachers Association. "I'm torn."

Montague also spoke how cutting sports affects a direction the school district has been trying to move in.

"We have a healthy lifestyle at the schools, yet we're cutting sports, which provide kids with after school exercise," he said. "We tell kids they can't bring a cupcake into the class when it's their birthday, but we're taking away sports. Maybe the board made a mistake with the budget, and maybe the community made a mistake supporting it."

But exercise isn't all people feel sports bring to children.

"Sports make people whole," Grogan said. "I think playing sports makes you a better person."