To improve The Columbus School’s athletic program, the board and general assembly approved a new policy that would improve the quality of the Polideportivo services.

Basically the new policy consists on implementing three mandatory online inscriptions per school year with athletes paying $300,000 pesos each semester. The policy was established last year, students and parents have to adapt to the new conditions in order for the program to gain structure.

“Basically this policy started last school year. By the start of the school year it was agreed upon the board and the general assembly that all students in sports would be charged,” Freddy Badillo, Athletics Director and Co-Curricular Activities, said.

They’ve been many things to take into consideration before implementing the program in the school, the goal is for this requirement to facilitate administration’s job and make it easier for students to get into the program.

“This was created to make it easier for both families and school, this makes it more organized and more profitable,” Badillo said.

Most coaches support the new policy and believe it’s the best option since they’ve only seen positive changes in their teams this year, new equipment and additional money to attend to tournaments.

“I believe that this is good since it much more agile. As a coach it didn’t affect my team in any way and I believe that the payment is fair since in every part they charge for giving this service and they should continue doing it at the school,” Hernan Arango, Girls Soccer Head Coach, said.

Unfortunately not all the changes have been positive. Since many of the soccer men athletes haven’t pay the fee, the number of people has decrease.

“I passed from 47 to 22 players. Some player or parents think that paying that amount of money for two 2 days of training is not justifying,” Urbano mesa, male soccer coach, said.

The number of girl athletes has stayed the same; however paying is something that’s been a negative factor from the new policy.

“The number of girls in my team is the same, I remind them to sign up and they do it on time. Being honest with you, as a coach they pay me the same but I have more implements in better conditions,” Anibal Betancourt, Girls’ Volleyball Head Coach, said.

For the boys is another story, having deadlines for inscriptions 3 times a year and having to pay for training in a school based program does not help them in any way since they are less organized.

“I believe that paying for Poli is unfair because it’s a program that has always been efficient without the additional costs. We have almost the same things that we had before paying. The inscriptions should be done only one time a year,” Santiago Velez, men’s soccer captain, said.

The number of people who think this is a great idea are bigger than the ones that don’t, the positive changes are clear even though the program needs some improvements

“Most of the people complain because this is a process that requires adaptation like everything in life, but in the long term it’s something that will help us become a better and stronger program,” Arango, said.