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The University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital NationalPoll on Children's Health recently asked parents of middle- andhigh-school-age children nationwide about participation and cost ofschool sports. Overall, 61 percent of children playing middle or high schoolsports were charged a pay-to-play fee. The average fee was $93,according to the poll respondents, but 21% of children faced apay-to-play fee of $150 or more. However, pay-to-play fees are only one component of the schoolsports costs reported by parents. Including equipment, uniforms andadditional team fees,, the average cost for a child's sportsparticipation was $381. Researchers found that 12 percent of parents overall said that thecost of school sports caused a drop in participation for at leastone of their children. However, that varied substantially based onincome. Among lower-income families, those earning less than$60,000 per year, 19 percent said their children's participationdecreased because of costs. But among families earning more than$60,000 per year, only 5 percent reported costs had caused theirchildren to participate less. "As pay-to-play becomes the norm, nearly 1 in 5 lower-incomeparents reported their kids decreased their sports participation --that's significant," says Sarah Clark, M.P.H., AssociateDirector of the Child Health Evaluation and Research (CHEAR) Unitat the University of Michigan and Associate Director of theNational Poll on Children's Health. The poll found only 6 percent of participants received a waiver ofpay-to-play fees. Perhaps, Clark says, schools need to look attheir waiver policies and consider options like partial waivers,installment payments, or other means to provide flexibility forfamilies. "We know that participating in school sports offers manybenefits to children and teens: higher school achievement, lowerdropout rates, improved health, reduced obesity and the developmentof skills like teamwork and problem-solving," says Clark. "There's not an athletic director, school administrator orcoach out there who doesn't want every kid to have a chance toparticipate. But there are no easy answers, especially becausebudgets are expected to get tighter and tighter." Each year millions of children and teens play competitive sportsthrough their middle and high schools. Clark says she hopes thesedata can help spur conversation among school officials about how tomake sure children in lower-income families are not left out. Further information. I am an expert from songiclaser.com, while we provides the quality product, such as No Needle Mesotherapy , Multifunction Beauty Equipment, Ultrasonic Cavitation Slimming Machine,and more.
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