abstract
| - “It was sad. I think, when you drop programs, kids find other interests. It was hard to get them back up and running again.” “We had another school that did this 20 years ago, and it took them years and years to recover and experience the success they had prior to the dropping of their programs.” “In the couple of instances where this has happened and school districts thought it would be a great money-saving tactic, it didn’t turn out to be so, because when they didn’t offer these programs they had large numbers of students leaving the district. State reimbursement is based on the number of students enrolled,” said Bob Gardner, executive director of the National Federation of State High School Associations. “Measures like these always sound good to the community at first because they think, ‘We’re putting education first,’ but I think sometimes they don’t realize they are cutting out the heart and soul of the school district.” The cuts to some sports proposed by Pittsburgh Public Schools superintendent, Linda Lane, are not expected to be temporary. They'll be forever. Families interested in competitions with those sports are going to flee the district forever more, unless the alternative plans being proposed, such as PPS H2O, All-City Sports Camps and the Olympic Sports Division can gain traction and get the necessary approval from school and city officials.
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