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The soaring cost of back-to-school basics
From Connecticut to Arizona, districts are adding fees to participate in after-school clubs, music programs and other activities
By EILEEN AJ CONNELLY
updated 7/24/2011 12:04:57 PM ET

State and local governments are cutting back, leading more public school districts to charge kids to compete in sports or play in the band. Such fees, commonly known as "pay-to-participate" or "pay-to-play" cropped up in the 1980s.
Initially, most of the extra fees were tied to athletics, particularly expensive sports like football and hockey.
Researching schools in Ohio in the late 1990s as part of his research for his PhD, Scott Smith found that about 20 percent of its school districts required some fees to play sports.
Today the practice is proliferating, said Smith, now chairman of the Department of Physical Education & Sport at Central Michigan University.
"Across the country, there's kind of a national phenomenon taking place," he said. "Obviously school budgets are being cut everywhere, and as school budgets are cut extracurriculars are cut."
And it's not just sports. From Connecticut to Arizona, districts are adding fees to participate in after-school clubs, music programs and other activities.
The price tags vary — some districts charge more for expensive sports while others set flat rates. It's not uncommon for districts to set an annual cap for families with more than one student enrolled in a school.
Payson High School in Payson, Ariz., for instance, assesses a $200 sports participation fee for students to try out and play one of 14 sports. A second sport is $50. There is no charge for a third sport, and fees are capped at $400 per family. The school also charges fees for certain electives: $20 for art or business and $40 for computer tech, for example.
These fees help defray the costs of equipment, uniforms, transportation and sometimes coaches or advisors. In some districts they might be designated as transportation fees or given some other label, depending on local regulations.
Such fees are also are cropping up in middle school programs. That's why Huntington Bank is highlighting pay-to-play fees in its annual "Backpack Index," a yearly look at the costs of going back to school.
"We just want to bring attention to the fact that these fees are increasingly required, and they're not going to go away," said Brent Wilder, a spokesman for the Columbus, Ohio-based bank that operates in six Midwestern states.
By surveying national chain retail store prices for a list of supplies and fees typically required for the various grade levels, including a backpack to carry it all in, Huntington determined that parents of elementary school students can expect to pay an average $530 this year. That's up from $474 last year, an increase of almost 12 percent.
For middle school students, costs will rise to an average $682, from $545 in 2010 — up 25 percent.
Expenses for high school students, which include college-prep materials for taking tests like the SAT, jumped to an average $1,094 from $1,003, a 9 percent increase...........................>>>>..........................>>>>..............................http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43856978/ns/today-money/

It is at least $100 per kid for these 'community supplies"!!! OMG!

I cant imagine all these costs.  I just got my childs class supply lists and Im floored at how much its going to cost me.  Then come the clothing.  I dont want to talk sports costs.  Im broke.