WORTHINGTON — Students from Worthington Christian School and St. Mary’s School often complete their K-12 education at Worthington High School, but how much should the private school kids pay to join District 518 sports and activities? And should students at neighboring public school districts be treated the same way?
Those were the questions at hand for the District 518 Board of Education’s Instructional Committee Monday morning, as they once again dealt with cooperative agreements with other schools that allow students to participate in activities.
Superintendent John Landgaard distinguished between two different sets of fees for students involved in sports and activities.
All District 518 students in activities pay participation fees, set at $10 per activity at Worthington Middle School and $50 at WHS, with a per-family cap of $200. Should students from Worthington’s two private schools join, they too pay those fees.
However, neither District 518 nor the Worthington private school students pay operational fees in order to participate in District 518 activities. Only students from other public school districts have been required to do that, and typically, the school is charged the fee, not the family, though some schools do choose to pass on the fee to the families.
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“Neighboring schools pay an operational fee to help recover the cost of the sport,” Landgaard said, explaining that those fees can vary significantly between sports but don’t include facility costs. For example, soccer could cost $100 per student, while gymnastics could be $1,100 per student.
Collaboration agreements with Round Lake-Brewster, Worthington Christian and St. Mary’s were listed together in the committee’s agenda.
“I feel there’s a huge difference between having the same contract for Round Lake-Brewster and our private schools in town, because those are two different things,” said Lori Dudley, school board member, noting that Round Lake-Brewster, as a separate school district, functions more like Adrian Schools.
Adrian has a collaborative agreement with District 518, and operational costs are assessed back to the school, which can opt to assess it back to families of participants.
School board member Matt Widboom agreed there’s a difference between the Worthington private schools and other public school districts, pointing out that most of the students at the two private schools end up attending District 518 schools afterward. Widboom’s own family is an example of that trend, as he and his wife Teresa have four children: one WHS graduate, two currently attending WHS and one currently attending Worthington Christian School.
The general consensus of the committee was to bring the matter before the full board for a decision, with the two private schools separate from Round Lake-Brewster.
In other news Monday, the committee:
- Received a hiring update from Landgaard. District 518 is still hiring for a number of positions, but has hired the early childhood education teachers needed to take 106 students for its preschool program expansion.
- Learned about the positive and negative potential of AI in the school, and that a policy will likely be needed to address it.
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