District to offer all-sports pass with discounts
Can be stored on phones, scanned
The North Hills School District is offering resid e n t s a way to save money on tickets to school sporting events and to avoid having to pay at the gate.
The school board on May 11 approved the allsports season pass, which can be ordered online and stored as a virtual ticket on a smartphone that will be scanned at the gate each time the person attends a sporting event.
The pass will get a person into every sporting event: football, soccer, volleyball, basketball, swimming, wrestling and lacrosse.
It also will provide a maximum two-game discount for each sport, except football.
The pass, which will be good for one school year, will cost $75 for adults and $23 for students. For a cost comparison, an adult would pay a total of $316 and students would pay $160 to attend all sporting events in a schoolyear.
The idea for the allsports pass came from Amy Scheuneman, athletic director, in response to requests from parents who want to attend multiple games.
“We want to encourage as many people as possible to attend our events and I think this pass offers an incentive for people,” Ms. Scheuneman wrote in a letter to superintendent Patrick Mannarino. “It also helps parents who may have multiple children or children who participate in multiple sports.”
The district will use State Sports for the online ticketing. A 1.5 percent fee will be added to the cost.
“The rationale behind it is excellent,” board member Arlene Bender said of the pass at the board’s May 4 work session. “My problem is I own a flip phone. What would archaic Mrs. Bender do?”
In other action, the board awarded contracts for uniforms for girls and boys cross-country, volleyball and soccer.
Board member Mike Yeomans noted that the contract with Century Sports is $5,562 for boys high school soccer and $4,446 for girls soccer, and he said the boys are getting a third jersey for cold weather. “It seems to me that it is just as cold when the girls play,” he said.
Ms. Scheuneman and Mr. Mannarino said the coach for the boys team asked for the third jersey but the coach for the girls team did not.
“Maybe we ought to try to be consistent in how we are supporting them,” boardmember Annette GiovengoNolish said.
Board member Lou Nudi suggested that the girls coach be asked why he did not request the third jersey.
The board also approved a new student-initiated club, the French National Honor Society, and approved the band and chorus trip to Walt Disney World for March 23-28, 2018. That is during spring break, board member Tom Kelly noted.
“The band and chorus have developed what I think is the right kind of model in moving forward on these trips — doing it over a holiday,” he said.