The District 205 School Board on Monday approved allowing K-through-8 students to get into extracurricular activities for free.
For the last several years, the school district has been working to eliminating fees for students to attend school, go out for sports, and now attend sporting events and other extracurricular activities.
Athletic Director Eric Matthews gave school board members some of the details of the program, including that parents would have to sign their K-8 students up for the free activity pass.
“We will create a card for you. It’ll have your student’s name, picture, school, and the year on it,” Matthews told board members Monday night. “We’ll have some rules on the back that you need to follow. Got to follow COVID protocol, must accompany an adult to a game so we’re not just being babysitters for people. So, we’re going to have to have people kind of change their philosophy on thinking about coming to things.”
Matthews told the board that the passes would only be for K-8 students and that high schoolers could get into the events using their high school student IDs.
“High school kids… we’re going to treat them like adults. They better have their ID on them when they come to the game anyway. So as long as they have their student ID, they’ll be able to get into the game and that’s normal. Otherwise, they have to pay to get in.”
Junior high students wouldn’t need the activity pass to get into a junior high event. Matthews and the board stressed that junior high students attending a high school event will still need supervision from an adult.
The passes would also allow students into other events, such as the play or musical, for free with the card.
Some events, primarily basketball, will be limited to how many kids will be allowed into the gym due to seating restrictions.
The district is still selling passes for parents and seniors to get into athletic events.
