Who are the Activities Directors of Minnesota?

Summary of Recent Conference on Activities in Minnesota

What can You  do?

Agenda of the Minnesota AD's concern for Activities

Pete Veldman Executive Secretary MnIAAA; 

Veldman, former AD at S. St. Paul ; “When girls’ spo rts entered the scene in the ‘70’s funding did not follow and has yet to catch up.  Obviously it was the right thing to do but we need to keep in mind that our costs doubled with no extra funding.”

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Fred Sailer, President of Minnesota Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association; 

 “If someone approached you and said ‘I have a program that will increase student attendance, lower teen pregnancy, increase test scores, decrease disciplinary issues in our schools, and be the one single most factor in career success’, you’d open your ears and checkbook and ask where to sign up.  We have that in extracurricular programs but yet are struggling to fund them.”

Minneosta Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Associaton  

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Sen. Dan Skogan, D-Wadena and Kirk Schneidawind; discuss thoughts on ways to increase funding for extracurricular activities.

Dave Stead, Executive Director MSHSL, shared with the committee his findings from a five state area the benefits of extracurricular activities and possible means of equitable funding.

Summary of 6/25/08 Ottertail Summit Meeting

Fundamental Principles of our efforts

1.      Fine arts and athletics must not be separated; the benefit and values gained from each are invaluable to children.

2.      Early intent and purpose of public education holds true today.  Economic status of a child should play no part I his or her participation.  The new wave of activity fees and club activities are exclusive to many children.

3.      Whatever financial gains we are able to gain for activity programs must not threaten funding for the classroom.

Possible Funding Sources

• Dedicated State Sales Tax
• Local Ability to raise funds with additional sales tax authority
• Statewide sales tax with emphasis on equity
• 3/8 % arts and natural resources bill is to be considered, could we access this bill for public schools arts programs?   It would seem to be a good fit as a building block to arts performance and thus free up additional local dollars for non-arts programs.
• Regarding sales tax; are there opportunities for a tax on clothing, airport, or internet sales tax?

o       State Lottery-Consider the North Carolina Model

o       Local School Board Levy authority

o       Statewide Foundation/endowment program

o       Categorical Aid as provided by legislature

Partnerships which need to be nurtured

• MSHSL
• MnIAAA
• MSBA
• Ed. Minnesota
• PTA/Parents united
• Principal organizations (elementary, middle and secondary schools)

Anticipated Opposition

• Taxpayer League

Tasks

• Consider a name for our committee
• Form a steering committee to centralize communication, develop language, expand our influence, and set next meeting date. (Dave Stead and Fred Sailer)
• Research data and more data to support our efforts