Decrying inadequacies in Boston public school athletics, a state senator yesterday filed legislation aimed at cracking down on school districts that fail to provide students opportunities to participate in reasonably funded interscholastic sports programs.
Senator Anthony D. Galluccio said he wrote the bill because he found “deeply disturbing’’ a Globe series showing that Boston shortchanges student-athletes on funding, facilities, equipment, and other services. The legislation would require the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to review each school district’s sports system on a range of criteria, including the portion of the total budget dedicated to athletics.
Boston spends just under $4 million, or less than a half-percent of its $833 million school budget, on sports. The statewide average is about 3 to 4 percent, according to the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, while the national average is 1 to 3 percent, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.
“I feel strongly enough that if a school district is spending such a small percentage of its budget on sports that it hurts the product, then it should be a red flag to the department of education,’’ said Galluccio, a Cambridge Democrat who sits on the education committee. His Senate district covers parts of Boston.
Under the bill, each school district would be required to file an annual “sports resource summary for public school athletics’’ with the education department. The summary would cite the percentage of the district’s budget allocated to athletics; the condition of the athletic facilities; the number of sports programs offered; the percentage of the student population participating in athletics; and gender equity statistics.
Each district’s plan would require the education department’s approval.
Galluccio, who chaired the Cambridge school committee while he was the city’s mayor in 2000 and 2001, also serves as an assistant football coach at Cambridge Rindge and Latin.
“I never would have expected this coming out of Boston,’’ he said of the Globe’s findings on school athletics.
Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who has vowed to improve the system, ordered an internal review of the matter as his rivals in the mayoral race continued to hammer the issue. The day after City Councilor Michael F. Flaherty accused Menino of lax leadership, another mayoral candidate, South End developer Kevin McCrea, faulted both Menino and Flaherty.
“This is another example of the lack of knowledge and oversight of what goes on in the Boston schools by the mayor and city council,’’ McCrea said. “The city needs a fiscal house cleaning to find out where our money is being spent and why it isn’t being spent wisely.’’
