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What's more important football or educating the kids????
At Basha High School in Chandler, Arizona from this $70,000 ticket booth the school purchased for football games it's obvious that football is much more important then educating the kids!!!! If a private school spent $70,000 on a ticket booth for football games I wouldn't have a problem with it. But when a government school does, I do have a problem with it! Basha High School getting $70,000 ticket booth by Kerry Fehr-Snyder - Sept. 7, 2012 09:10 AM The Republic | azcentral.com The Basha High School football team evidently is willing to pay the price. The players' hard work has them ranked among the state's top 10 this week. Now it is the Chandler Unified School District taxpayers' turn to pay the price: The district is spending nearly $70,000 for a ticket booth at the Basha High football stadium. Last month, the district's governing board voted unanimously to spend $69,499 to build the ticket booth at the south end of the stadium concession stand. Some of the Bears' fans question the expense as unnecessary or too high. Others say that it's about time the school, built in 2002 and the only one in the district without a ticket booth, added the structure. "By now, you'd think they would have one," said Darlene Healy, whose daughter is on the Basha varsity pom line. Parents Joe and Marci Coombs, however, believe that the district is wasting money. "Seventy-thousand dollars?" Marci Coombs said. "They should put that toward something else." Kyle Waters, a 15-year-old sophomore at the school, said the current setup works well but Terry Locke, spokesman for the district, said the current setup is "anything but sufficient." "I don't think it's worth it to spend that money," Waters said. Waters says that collecting money and issuing tickets from a table with a police officer nearby to ward off theft attempts "is pretty effective." The governing board awarded a contract for the work to Core Construction of Phoenix. The school currently sets up folding tables and cardboard boxes on game nights with the words "Tickets" printed on the front. Five workers sell tickets from the boxes and cash bags, charging $5 for adults and $3 for students. The tables are set up near a driveway that runs south of the football stadium. A ticket booth was not included when Basha was built a decade ago because the school was constructed by the state School Facilities Board, which does not consider a ticket booth a minimum standard for a school. Ticket-booth work will include cutting into the block concession stand and moving walls inside the building. The district, which is using bond money for the project, is not adding storage space or bathrooms to the facility. But it is relocating three compartment sinks in the concession stand to make way for ticket sales. The work will start in October and take six to eight weeks, said Frank Fletcher, associate superintendent for support services. The ticket booth will have four windows, Fletcher said. That is one line fewer than the ticket table has. Kevin NcNamara, a 15-year-old Basha High student, said the table setup is better than those of rival schools with permanent ticket booths. "When we went to the last game at Corona (del Sol), it took longer to get our tickets" because it had fewer windows, he said. Brianna Powell and Brianna Sheppard, both 16-year-old Basha students, agreed. "It's ridiculous," Sheppard said, after laughing about the cost of the ticket booth. "The problems of not having ticket booths are especially pronounced with games that have a large attendance, such as Mountain View, Chandler, Hamilton, Perry and Desert Ridge encounters. Those games attract between 5,000 and 10,000 people," Locke said. Locke said handling money outside of a ticket booth is inherently risky. "In addition to the security of having staff handle cash in such a public manner, it has also increased costs for the school, such as paying for additional police and paying overtime to support staff who have to run money, which won't be a factor when the school has ticket booths," Locke said. He added that selling tickets and handling cash in inclement weather has been an ongoing issue as rain soaks the ticket sellers and the money and heavy winds have blown around the cash. Basha High Principal Ken James said the idea for a permanent ticket booth came from football boosters. "They had plans drawn up and a location selected," James said. "Their plan was going to be very expensive." Fletcher, the associate superintendent, suggested using the back half of the existing concession stand. "His people met with me and the booster-club president," James said. "We came up with a design that will be very effective for everyone involved and cost less." What's included in the cost According to school-district documents, the cost for the planned Basha High School ticket booth includes:
• Carpentry, millwork and other finishes: $16,875.
Total: $69,499. |