CEC Hockey fees won't be raised

After Cloquet school board members seemed to indicate in March they were OK with the idea of increasing player fees for hockey, four of five board members present voted against the proposal Monday. Hockey players already pay the highest school activity fee. On the other hand, the cost of the high school program is far less than families pay for youth hockey as their children get older, superintendent Michael Cary had pointed out in March. According to the Cloquet Amateur Hockey Association website, the top fee for Bantam players (ages 13-14) is $1,350 per season, $1,200 for early registration.

Cloquet currently charges hockey players a $250 activity fee per season, football is $205 and other varsity sports charge $170 but use school facilities or less expensive amenities such as Pine Valley. The fee for most extracurricular activities other than sports, such as mock trial, theater and robotics, is $85 per season. The fees are halved for students who qualify for reduced lunch, and students who qualify for free lunch pay 25 percent. There is currently a cap of $525 per family per year, with the same 50- and 25-percent fee scale for families who qualify for reduced and free lunch.

Activities director Paul Riess provided a comparison of hockey activity fees at other area schools, which are $500 per season at Duluth East, Denfeld and Marshall at the high end, to $70 per athlete in Moose Lake. Other examples included Hermantown at $190, Two Harbors $175, Proctor $150 and $100 in Superior. Most schools also have a family maximum charge per school year: in Duluth that is $1,000, Cloquet $525, Two Harbors $700, and Hermantown doesn’t have a maximum.

The proposed increase would have raised fees for hockey only by $25 a year over the next four years. The family maximum would not have changed.

“My concern is that hockey is going to be a sport for only the people that can afford it,” Scarbrough said.

Board member Steve Battaglia said he didn’t like the idea of charging athletes more because of higher facility costs, versus coaches and equipment, noting that the district also provides for fields and basketball courts.

“In a time of cutting budgets, the money’s got to come from somewhere, you know how I feel about the lease question,“ Lammi said, referring to what he considers an excessive fee by the city for leasing Northwoods arena.

Board members Nate Sandman, Melissa Juntunen, Scarbrough and Battaglia voted in favor of a motion to leave hockey fees the same; Lammi was the only vote against it.

Scarbrough pointed out that the lease levy property tax covers the full cost of the lease, which is shared by the three districts that participate in the hockey program by percentage of participants.

Board members approved a new contract for the director of buildings and grounds, Dylan Carlson, unanimously with no discussion. During the work session, Cary said he had met with board member Hawk Huard to go over his concerns about the contract and position. Huard, a retired custodian for the district, was absent Monday. At the previous meeting, the motion to approve the contract had failed on a 3-3 vote.

Exposure testing

From June 2022 to June 2023, the Cloquet school district will partner with the Minnesota Department of Health to give families in the early childhood program the opportunity to test children for exposure to hazardous chemicals including metals, pesticides, phthalates, flame retardants, and environmental phenols.

The program will measure these markers in the urine of 3- to 6-year-olds throughout Minnesota. Each year, Healthy Kids Minnesota will include one metropolitan and one nonmetropolitan region, aiming to recruit 250-300 children per region per year.