This school year started off with a number of changes: Teachers are all using Moodle, Punky isn’t reading the announcements, we now use single-bin recycling, and students in DECA, Windigo, and Zephyrus now have to pay activity fees to go to class. Wait a minute. Public school students, paying for school? Yup, you heard that right.

The new activity fees, voted in by the School Board at its July 18 meeting, months after students in Windigo and Zephyrus had applied and DECA students had registered, were instituted to cover the stipends paid to each group’s advisor to cover the time they must put in outside of the regular school day for their group, such as supervising weekend layout sessions for Zephyrus and going to DECA competitions. One group that is not being charged fees, however, is Student Council. Though its advisors, Angela Kieffer and Mellanie Pusateri, do not technically receive a stipend, they receive around $6,500 as an “extra service salary,” which they split. The reason for this, according to Assistant Principal Jenny Johnson, is that Student Council is a “service-oriented group” that provides a service to the school.

StudCo, however, is not the only group that provides a service to the school. “We’re making something for the school,” said Windigo Head Editor Kathleen Hansen. This is a sentiment echoed by us at Zephyrus. “Windigo lasts forever,” she added, implying that the yearbook will let students relive their high school years for the rest of their lives. Zephyrus produces the newspaper you’re holding right now – keeping you up to date with developments at EHS. DECA, too, provides a service to the school with the DECAfe, a favorite hangout for students that keeps us fueled with donuts and Arnie Palmers.

“It seems that there is a higher value on the work done by students in Student Council, who don’t have to pay a fee, versus that done by students in Zephyrus and other organizations who now do have to pay a fee,” said Zephyrus advisor Elizabeth Barniskis.

Another issue is that of communication. The District did not communicate directly with the impacted teachers until after the start of the school year and never involved students at any point in the process, although all the affected activities are at least partially student-directed.

While $40 for the publications and $80 for DECA is probably not unmanageable for most Edina families, students should have been informed last spring of the possibilities of fees, or at least on July 19th of the actual implementation of fees. Had Windigo been informed of the possibilities of fees last spring, Hansen said, “we would have fought it more than anything. We would have done something” to keep the fees from hitting students. Zephyrus, too, would have considered alternatives, such as fundraising and directing ad money to cover the fees.

While it is important to note that the District was faced with the choice of charging for all activities or cutting them, the way in which those fees were implemented was “not fair,” according to Hansen – a sentiment that I, as Editor in Chief of Zephyrus, share. Making an activity cover the cost of its advisor’s stipend is an appropriate measure of last resort given the tough budgetary situation of the District, but one that should only be implemented after at least informing those affected. In the future, perhaps the District will do a better job of keeping students informed of impending changes to classes that they have signed up for, applied to, and, sometimes, put hours and hours of work into over the summer to ensure that they can have a successful year.