No school board funds for science teams?
BY FRANKLIN HAYES Gulf Breeze News franklin@gulfbreezenews.com

As Gulf Breeze students make the final adjustments to their homemade robots and brush up on their knowledge of geology, local Science Olympiad organizers and school district officials are working to pay for their trip to the national competition. The nationwide contest to distinguish the country's very best high school and middle school science students will be held in Washington, D.C.

Gulf Breeze High Science Olympiad coordinator and science teacher Sue Cundiff says it will cost approximately $15,000 to send her team to nationals. Although some of that funding is raised locally through fundraisers, academic teams, much like their athletic contemporaries, rely on school board funding.

Gulf Breeze School Board Member Ed Gray said he is waiting for final numbers from the middle and high school teams.

"We haven't approved anything specific yet," Gray said. At the last meeting, I brought up the teams and I felt the board should support them, though not as much as previous years." Gray added that state level budget cuts would force the board to reduce the amount of funding historically granted to both Science Olympiad teams.

According to school board financial advisor Doug Dillon, the board gave a total of $16,407.65 in 2005, $20,242.50 in 2006 and $18,260 in 2007 to the program. Dillon confirmed Gray's budget concerns saying the board is reevaluating how it funds extra-curricular activities.

When asked to compare the board's funding of athletic versus academic extra-curricular activities, Dillion said, "Most of those [athletic teams] are driven by internal funds like gate receipts. The board historically puts up some funding for athletics yearly. Usually $150,000 is split up district wide based on the size of the school. Teams that may compete in various things around the state or the country [like Science Olympiad] are funded on an as requested basis. The board has in past sometimes chipped in some of the cost."

Requests for specific amounts presented to Pace High School for its football team's trip to state competition or to Gulf Breeze High School for the soccer teams' state competitions was unavailable from Dillon as of press time.

In past years, Gray said the board offered to match whatever money the Science Olympiad teams raised on their own. Cundiff said her team has already raised approximately $5,000 through requested donations, collecting green Bruno's receipts, Bruno's donations, team members bagging groceries, holding a car wash and student contributions.

Cundiff said she understands that the board's contribution will be smaller this year than normal.

"The funding is not coming in as quickly as it did last year," Cundiff said. "We can understand it because a lot of people have had to cut back."