Lehighton Area School District’s board of directors tabled a policy update Monday night that would assess a fee for outside charter/cybercharter school students who want to play sports or participate in an extracurricular activity for the Indians.

District officials said a $750 athletic eligibility fee, which is allowed by law, would help to recover costs for Lehighton administration and staff time spent completing the weekly academic verification process. The fee would be charged per player per sports season.

An additional fee, which would vary per sport or activity, would also be charged to recoup costs associated with the student’s participation.

Per the formula, the average number of students participating in the activity during the past three years will be used as a divisor number to the following:

• Annual transportation cost

• Uniform cost

• Materials cost

• Annual coaches’ salaries

• Annual officials stipend

• Other associated miscellaneous costs

If the team or group qualifies for playoffs or participates in additional activities, additional coasts may be billed.

According to the proposed policy, “the building principal or designee shall receive and review written verification from the charter or cybercharter school that a student has met and continues to meet the established eligibility criteria for an extracurricular activity or interscholastic athletic program.”

“We are trying to get money from the cybercharter school to supplant that individual coming back into our district because they are not a student within our district when they go to a charter school,” Board President Larry Stern said during Monday night’s board meeting.

Students attending a Lehighton Area School District school or participating in its internal Lehighton Area Virtual Academy would not have to pay the fee to play a sport.

While it is not specified in the policy, Monday’s board discussion indicated the charter or cybercharter schools themselves would be responsible for the $750 payment. Questions arose, however, regarding whether parents had the option to pay for their child’s participation in an LASD sport if the charter or cybercharter school refused to pay the fee, leading to the policy being tabled for further investigation.

Director David Bradley told the board he strongly opposes the policy, accusing the district of trying to create an avenue to bring students back from outside charter and cybercharter schools.

“I oppose the idea of trying to restrict extracurricular participation by students within our community when we as a community are the ones that funded all of these facilities,” Bradley said. “I don’t think it’s right.”

When a student leaves their home district to attend a brick-and-mortar charter school or a cybercharter school, the district foots the bill for the student’s education. The formula by which charter schools are funded has long been a point of contention with districts across the state.

“We may get $7,500 from the state for that student, but in turn we are paying $14,000 to the charter school,” Lehighton Superintendent Jonathan Cleaver said. “We’re absolutely losing money. I think if you saw that funding formula changed to make it more equitable, you’d be seeing a lot less of discussions like this.”

Lehighton officials said there are currently very few cases where a student in an outside charter school is playing sports for Lehighton.

The issue, Lehighton Business Administrator Edward Rarick said, comes down to fairness.

“To participate in sports, you have to have a certain grade-point average and passing grades,” Rarick said. “We have a lot of difficulty getting information from charter schools on any little thing. If a student is failing three subjects at a charter school and we don’t know about it because we can’t get information, it’s not fair to the student here who may be failing one subject and is held out from playing. This policy would help us get that information out of those schools in a more fluid manner.”