PAY to PLAY : From ‘Donations’ to ‘Transportation Fees,’ or Whatever High School Districts Want to Call Them, Athletes Are Being Asked to Pay a Big Price Just to Make the Team

At the suggestion of a P.E. instructor, Cindy Davies decided to try out last fall for girls varsity basketball at Agoura High.

But when she went to try out, she said, she was asked to pay $100.

“I told the coach I didn’t have that kind of money,” Davies said. “She told me I could set up a payment schedule, but I told her there was no way I wanted to pay.

“I said, ‘I guess that means I’m not on the team?’ And she said, ‘Yeah.’ ”

Davies didn’t pay--and didn’t play.

She is one of several Agoura students who charge that the $100-per-sport donation the school asks of each athlete actually is a mandatory fee.

They believe Agoura is violating a state Supreme Court ruling last April stating that public schools cannot impose special fees on students who join in extracurricular activities sponsored by the school.

Dan Lambach, who said his daughter was told that until she paid she would not be issued a uniform to play varsity basketball, has threatened to sue the school and the Las Virgenes Unified School District.

In a letter to school and district officials, Lambach wrote: “I want to see the children, if capable, play a sport because they have the (ability) and interest to play . . . not to be intimidated by or terminated . . . because they do not have the money to play a sport in a public school.”

Although school officials say they will field teams only in those sports in which 100% of the team members make $100 contributions to the school, they say the contribution is voluntary and is not a prerequisite for participation.

“If we charged a fee,” said district spokesman Don Zimmering, “we’d say, ‘Everyone who pays the fee gets to play and those who don’t, don’t get to play.’ We’re not saying that. We’re saying, ‘In order for an activity to (be funded), this is what has to happen.’

“We don’t want to get into the position of people pointing fingers and saying, ‘I paid and they didn’t.’ ”

But Lew Pebbles, director of physical education and athletics for the state Department of Education, said that Agoura, by threatening to drop the team, is “strong-arming” its athletes into paying.

Said Pebbles: “The bottom line is, a student can’t participate if he doesn’t pay because the school wouldn’t have 100% (donations).”

Pebbles said, despite the Supreme Court ruling, high schools throughout the state--strapped financially by Proposition 13--have continued to charge their athletes for transportation fees, which they believe were not affected by the court’s ruling.

He is concerned that some schools, in light of the Supreme Court ruling, simply may have changed the name of the fees they are charging for athletics.

Among Valley-area high schools, Simi Valley and Royal charge a one-time-only transportation fee of $50; Oak Park charges $30-$50 per sport and Westlake, Thousand Oaks and Newbury Park charge $35 for one sport, $20 for a second and $15 for a third, with a maximum family fee of $85 per school year.

In the latter group, that’s an increase over last year, when the Conejo Valley Unified School District charged a “participation” fee of $25 for one sport, $15 for a second and $10 for a third.

“Our district legal counsel advised us that all we had to do was change the name of the fee,” said Pat Jellander, an assistant to the assistant superintendent of instruction for the district.

High schools in the Burbank, William S. Hart and Los Angeles districts do not charge fees of any kind.

Dr. Clyde Smyth, superintendent of the William S. Hart Union High School District, which includes Canyon, Saugus and Hart high schools, said the Hart district absorbed the loss of revenue from participation fees--which brought $60,000 into the district during the 1983-84 school year--by allocating more money for athletics from the district’s general fund.

“Each district looks at its expenses and then makes the tough choices as to what it can and can’t do,” Smyth said. “ . . . It becomes a priority decision. You say, do I cut sports or do I cut somewhere else?”

This time, Smyth said, the district cut somewhere else. In the late 1970s, however, it cut several lower-level sports teams and eliminated water polo and wrestling. Smyth predicts none of the teams that were cut ever will be reinstated.

“We stopped charging fees because the Supreme Court told us we had to,” he said. “If fees were still constitutional, we would still be charging.”

Calabasas, like Agoura, asks its athletes for a $100 donation.

Calabasas, however, does not threaten to drop sports in which less than 100% of the team members make the donations.

“We don’t take that hard line,” said Vice Principal Bob Fraisse.

Taking the hard line, Pebbles believes, may be Agoura’s undoing.

By simply asking athletes to contribute, rather than placing at their feet the burden of an entire sport being cancelled, Agoura’s tactics would not be in question, Pebbles said. He suggested that the school could send a letter to parents and business leaders, telling them a certain amount of money needed to be raised to save the athletic program. Or, the athletes themselves could raise the money through raffles or other fund-raisers.

There is nothing wrong with asking the athletes, through their parents, to help fund the athletic program, Pebbles said, “as long as the condition of participation isn’t interfered with. . . .

“Don’t go to the parents and say, ‘Hey, your kid didn’t pay, and if he doesn’t pay, we’re not going to be able to do this.’ That’s the same as requiring the kid to pay.”

There seems little doubt that Agoura students believe they are required to pay to play.

“They call it a donation,” said senior Steve Armstrong, who paid $300 this school year to play three sports, “but you don’t get an equipment card unless you pay. And if you don’t have an equipment card, you don’t get a uniform.”

Said Vice Principal Les Van Dyke: “Nobody will be issued a uniform until the whole team indicates they are going to pay.”

In a letter to the school newspaper, freshman Brett Hawley wrote: “The law states that it’s illegal to make a student pay to join. This school calls it a donation. Call it what you want, it’s still excluding students that don’t pay your so-called donation. I hope someone makes some changes because the athletic department is missing out on many good athletes.”

This has been an uncommonly successful year for the Agoura athletic program--the football team was unbeaten and won its first Southern Section championship; the basketball team reached the Southern Section 2-A semifinals; and the soccer team reached the 1-A final.

“The high fees aren’t going to keep the top athletes out of sports,” said soccer Coach Marc Berke. “Those kids know they’re going to be starters and play a lot.

“But you’re going to miss out on a lot of mediocre athletes--the guys who come off the bench and help so much in team sports. Those kids are the ones who aren’t going out because they figure it’s not worth the money if they aren’t going to play much.”

Agoura’s varsity girls basketball team had only five players last season until a member of the junior varsity was brought up midway through the season. That left the JVs with only six.

The Supreme Court last April ruled on a case involving the Santa Barbara High School District, which had sought to impose a $25 fee for participation in each individual extracurricular activity--interscholastic athletics, vocal and instrumental musical groups, dramatic productions and cheerleading--as a means of revenue. The money once available was slashed in 1978 after California voters passed Proposition 13.

The court, in a case brought by Barbara Hartzell of Santa Barbara, ruled the imposition of fees for educational programs offered by public high schools--even if the courses are not taken for credit and are outside the classroom--violates the “free school” provision of the state Constitution.

A trial court had ruled in favor of the district, saying that none of the activities covered by the fees was “integral” to regular classes needed to graduate.

The Supreme Court overturned the ruling.

“It can no longer be denied that extracurricular activities constitute an integral component of public education,” Justice Otto Kaus wrote in the majority opinion.

The rejection of special fees has affected many districts in the state that had adopted them to supplement their budgets after Proposition 13, which drastically reduced property taxes, then the primary source of school funds. Officials from 67 districts filed briefs in support of the Santa Barbara fees.

In the Las Virgenes district, the school board decided two years ago that it could no longer field full-scale high school athletic programs at Agoura and Calabasas without financial support from the schools’ parent booster groups.

The board told the parents it would fund 53% of the direct cost of the programs, including transportation and coaches’ salaries. The remaining 47%, it said, would have to be raised by the parent groups.

The booster groups consequently sought $100-per-sport donations.

Zimmering, the district spokesman, said the difference between a fee and a donation “is a fine line to those who are paying it, but the district’s in a position of trying to allocate the resources they have in the best manner possible.”

The major difference in how the two schools solicit donations, Calabasas’ Fraisse said, is the Calabasas group is more careful in the wording of a letter it sends to parents, making sure they understood that the contribution is a donation and not a fee.

“I think we would withstand the test of any attorney,” Fraisse said, “and that’s the only way I would operate.”

He said about 90% of the school’s athletes donate. Those who don’t are not pressured to do so, he said. At Agoura, if anybody chooses not to pay, booster club President Bob McLaughlin said, “We go after them,” by following up with letters and phone calls.

Agoura raised about $55,000 in donations last year, McLaughlin said.

Although Calabasas does not threaten to discontinue programs if the athletes do not contribute, Fraisse said: “There will come a time when a group of parents will decide they don’t want to contribute, and we will have to cut that team. It is not a bluff. The school will have to cut back. And it only makes sense to cut the team where the parents have decided not to contribute.”

At Agoura, Vice Principal Van Dyke said he isn’t sure if the school’s system of soliciting donations would stand up in court.

Attorney Kirk Ah Tye, who represented Hartzell in her case against the Santa Barbara district, believes the Agoura system, which he described as “coercion,” would “fall pretty easily” if challenged in court.

Said Van Dyke: “I don’t think anybody likes what we’re doing, but that’s the agreement the parents came to in order to fund athletics. There’s a very easy alternative--it’s not a very good one for kids--and that’s not to offer sports. And the parents know that.”

McLaughlin blames the district for the current problems.

“I really think it’s the district’s responsibility to fund the program,” he said. “It’s really out of desperation that we do it this way. . . . We’re not happy with the situation, but it’s the only possible way we can see to fund the program for the kids.”

Said Zimmering: “This is certainly not an ideal situation. Nobody here is supportive of it. In the best of all possible worlds, we would have enough money to run all the programs we want to run. Unfortunately, this is not the case in the state of California. . . .

“Every program in the district went through severe cuts. This was one of them. It there were any litigation involved, the district would have to view its alternatives, one of which would be not offering the sports in view of how much money is available.

“Based on our current budget, there’s certainly no way the school board’s going to be able to come up with additional monies to increase its contribution to the programs.”

For now, it’s up to the parents. And some aren’t happy about it.

But, as McLaughlin said, “There’s no Santa Claus out there.”