Monday, March 24, 2008

The $2,350 Trophy

The $2,350 trophy!

A little more than 3 years ago I enrolled Sabi in a gymnastics class at a kid gym nearby. I really liked the gym and the classes. The classes were very well structured as far as athletics are concerned and it was a safe and non competitive environment unlike another local establishment. It was a bit on the pricey side at $57 a month but she was having fun and getting a lot out of the class.

About a year and a half into it Sabina asked if she could take a dance or karate class offered at the same place. After some inquiry I found that it would cost me another $50 and I told her that she had to choose. 6 months later she told me that she wanted to try dance out instead of gymnastics. I was glad to make the change. Gymnastics looked like a lot of fun but it was frustrating to Sabina because the bar work in gymnastics didn't come very easy to her. The rest of the girls in her class were so petite and tiny and were able to to fly over those bars with great ease. That just didn't work for Sabi. She couldn't figure it out and she came home crying several times.

Dance has been awesome. The teacher is so energetic and supportive of the kids. Even better, Sabina loves to dance and is good at it. She has a lot of confidence with it and gets an even harder workout from it than gymnastics!

Sounds great, right? Here is the clincher...

In December, the teacher told the parents that a recital would be coming up soon and that we parents might want to privately start looking for sponsors for our own kids' costumes to wear to the recital. I just laughed this off and thought it must be a joke. WRONG!

In February, the "costumes" for each dance class were posted with prices and the kids had to be measured. Sabina's class will be performing 2 dances and guess what? Each dance has a different costume!!! The total for both outfits is $133. Whoa! I thought it over for about a week and went back and forth on whether or not I would go ahead with the recital. $133 for 2 outfits? That is just ridiculous. I finally agreed to do it since Sabina really wanted to do it and she had never done one before. I am not completely happy with that decision but the my tax refund came around the same time and I just went for it.

Today, at class, we parents had another surprise. A sign was posted letting us know that we need to purchase tickets to have the privilege of watching the damn recital. (yes, I am angry by now!) The tickets are a whopping $8 for kids and $15 per adult. This is just outrageous. I, of course, have no choice but to buy the ticket but I am not going to have any other family members come. What a racket!

At the end of class today Sabina's teacher made an announcement to the entire class and group of parents. She had a trophy in her hand and said "May I have your attention. We have a student here who has been with us for 3 years. We here at ********** like to acknowledge this achievement with a trophy!"

The dad next to me started laughing and said "that is one expensive trophy!" No joke....that crazy trophy cost me $2,350!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

oh no. that's more of a trophy for mom than sabi. although you might have too many negative thoughts associated with it to ever enjoy it. i think the parents at this school need to get together and make some demands. what is the point of 133 dollar costumes? good luck.

cindylu said...

wow. i didn't know the activities could be so costly.