School Board Split on Fielding Lacrosse Team

The Port Jefferson school board has put off making a decision on fielding boys and girls Lacrosse teams in the for another month to give all of the board members more time to question athletic director Deb Ferry about her report, including a proposed budget for first year costs.

A split vote on whether to fund an expenditure of $41,712 to field a spring team for boys and girls Lacrosse came from board members with concerns about cost and the desire for further explaination of the details.

A proposal to play Lacrosse.

The idea for a starting a Lacrosse team in Port Jefferson was first brought up to the school board by parents and students in August. Some of the parents had already been running a Police Athletic League Lacrosse youth club for elementary school aged kids but wanted the opportunity for children in Port Jefferson to eventually compete on the Varsity level. Three of the parents who run the league attended the board meeting to answer questions and request the board vote to fund the fielding of a team.

Initially, the Lacrosse teams would be created for the Middle School starting in spring 2011 with the students moving on to the Junior Varsity and Varsity levels as the program evolved and the students moved up in grades.

The cost to initiate the program, according to the report written by Ferry, is $20,938.90 for a boy's team and $18,193.90 for a girl's team, which includes costs for coaching, student supervision, field equipment, transportation, uniforms, helmets, goalie equipment and other items. The difference in funds needed for each team, according to the proposed budget, is that for girls, the costs for repair and reconditioning of helmets is less and girls do not require as much padding for their uniforms.

A parent at the meeting said that the reason is that in girls Lacrosse, players do not wear a helmet.

This shocked some board members who asked why.

Girls Lacrosse is considered non-contact sport and checking is not allowed though girls are required to wear goggles explained the parents.

Survey of interest.

In the report was a survey that the school conducted in September to guage student interest in playing Lacrosse. It deemed that there is enough interest to field a team with little impact on existing sports programs.

The school asked girls and boys in fifth through eighth grades if they were able to join one team per season in Middle School, which team would they pick from a list of sports. For the girls the list included Track, Softball, Gymnastics and Lacrosse in the spring season. A total of 32 girls picked Lacrosse. Boys were given a choice of Track, Baseball and Lacrosse as spring sports. Twenty-five boys picked Lacrosse.

According to the report written by Ferry, a girls Lacrosse team must consist of eleven players and a boys team has ten players. In order to play in a recommended A/B format where there are an equal number of substitute players for each position, the girls team needs 22 players and the boys need 20, although Ferry stressed that this is not required to field a team. Out of the total students surveyed 16 boys and 18 girls expressed interest in playing Lacrosse just from seventh and eighth grade alone.

"There is clearly is an interest," Superintendent Dr. Max Riley said.

An investment of funds.

With a $41,712 investment for both teams for the first year, the board wanted to ensure that the money was being spend wisely, especially with a by the recent in October to reduce the amount of money the utility pays on its Port Jefferson owned property. The fear is that if the taxes are reduced the school may see a dramatic reduction in revenue.

Dennis Kahn expressed some reservations and wanted to hear more from athletic director Deb Ferry.

"We don't know what the future is three or four years down the road," said Kahn who is head of the board's LIPA Committee.

He said he was concerned about "committing $40,000 to the program without knowing what's coming."

The Facilities Committee for the School Board had previously reviewed the report by Ferry but other board members wanted the opportunity to question her directly.

In order to field a team in time for spring the school needs to make its decision known to Suffolk Athletics' Section XI. The organization said that it wants to hear from the school by the end of December if it's fielding a team. It was unclear to the board the exact date in December they needed to notify the organization.

Parents alleviate some financial burden.

The parents who made the initial proposal have been running a youth Lacrosse league and were described as a "strong and organized group of parents running teams for a number of years" by board member Mark Doyle. The parents also offered to help in fundraising to offset costs to fielding the team. In August they created a Booster Club to fundraise for the creation of a team.

One parent who spoke at the meeting said that raising "$5,000 or somewhere around there would not be a problem at all."

During discussions, the parents also said that can provide some of their own equipment including helmets and practice goals. Some board members wanted to make sure helmets provided by the parents were certified saying that safety needed to come before cost.

"We should make sure the helmets are appropriate and safe," said board member, Lauren Hubbard. "It's not the best thing to cut on."

The parents said that by using the existing equipment that the kids already owned the school could save some money and that the equipment was safe for the kids to wear.

"If we take our existing equipment to be certified we don't need to spend the money on helmets," said one parent.

They also said that Lacrosse sticks were generally provided by players.

After a quick calculation of savings, Doyle said that the school can save $5000 from the money the parents promised to raise plus whatever costs on equipment that the players already own.

"Sounds like you can save $10,000 on boys and girls teams," he said. "About $30,000 total cost if both teams are fielded."

Lacrosse field still a dream.

One issue still of a concern to board members is the potential cost down the road to build a dedicated Lacrosse field.

At the board meeting in October costs for building a field was discussed. Currently the school does not have enough room on its fields to add Lacrosse when it gets to the high school level.

A proposal from John A. Grillo, the school district's architect, came in at about $1,000,000 while a proposal by a company the parents contracted estimated the cost to be anywhere from $140,000 to $162,000.

When the Facilities Committee reviewed both proposals it discovered that the second estimate did not adequately allow for drainage among other issues. The board said it will continue to review plans to bring costs down.

"We still have no field but the field issue would not come until we get to the junior varsity and varsity levels," said Dr. Riley.

Other options were discussed instead of building additional fields just for Lacrosse like sharing fields with other schools, having a permanent away team or using some of the Brookhaven Town fields that have been built recently.

In the meantime the Middle School teams can share a field with other sports teams.

"We can go two years without having to build a field," said one parent.

The team would start playing on the field on Scraggy Hill Road. The board said that the team could not play on the football field because it's needed for other athletics events in the spring.

"The first step is about giving it a try," said Lauren Hubbard, head of the Facilities Committee. "If you don't give it a try then the answer is definitely no but we'll try it one step at a time."

A split vote.

At the end of the discussion the board voted on a motion by Dennis Kahn to table the to review decision until a later date. The vote was split three to three so the motion did not carry.

A second motion was made to approve the expenditure of up to $40,000 to field a Middle School boys and girls Lacrosse team by Lauren Hubbard. That motion also split the vote.

Because of the split decision, the board had to table the vote until the next month and requested Dr. Riley to have the school's Athletic Director attend the next school board meeting to answer some more questions from the board so they could make a final decision.