Rachele Keller of Cortland has four kids in the Mathews Local School District, and she says all of them play soccer — a sport that’s now on the chopping block at the district’s high school. 

“It’s just sad,” Keller told 21 News in an interview Thursday. “It’s something that affects not only the high school players playing now, but all the future kids that are going to come up and want to play.” 

The Mathews Local Schools (MLS) board of education will vote at its March 18 meeting on whether to cut soccer, esports and indoor track amidst a funding crunch that could get much worse if property taxes are eliminated. 

The district already lost $389,000 in state funding last year, according to superintendent Russell McQuaide. McQuaide told 21 News in a phone interview Thursday that with the future of property taxes in question, the district especially cannot afford to operate in a deficit.

“Our population base has shifted, and we've got less students at Matthews,” McQuaide said. “You end up with less students, you end up with less funding, to some degree. … We don't want to be deficit spending for long, because you can't recover from it. And so that's what we're trying to address.”

Losing the property tax revenue would cost the district another $70,000-$230,000, according to McQuaide, who said the funding makes up 68% of the MLS budget. He said cutting soccer, e-sports and indoor track will save up to $45,000 a year.

The area has a robust youth soccer league. According to McQuaide, Keller and another parent  named Kristina Chaney, more than 100 children aged 4-15 sign up for the league each year. But McQuaide said that participation level “never really trickles into the high school.” 

“Soccer has been one of the teams that we've had difficulty fielding the team, and consistently fielding it from year to year,” McQuaide said. “We've even had to have some girls on the boys’ team — which is okay, you know, but it's a boys’ league.” 

The issues with participation also impact esports, he said: “A lot of kids sign up for esports, and then you get like, half of them to show up.” McQuaid also noted that esports and indoor track are not part of the Ohio High School Athletic Association. 

Chaney told 21 News families in the community are prepared to contribute their time and money to keep the soccer program going.  

“Our goal is simply to make sure these kids still have the chance to play the sport they love, represent their school, and finish their high school careers doing something meaningful to them,” Chaney wrote in a Facebook message. 

McQuaide’s message for parents was that these are “very hard choices for us to make,” but that “something that is also important to ask [is] when is the turning point where you don't offer something anymore?”

The athletic department is not the only part of the district that is likely to see cuts due to budget issues. McQuaide told 21 News he spent three hours in meetings Thursday morning discussing other ways for the district to save money, looking at supply costs, “some staffing things,” and potentially decreasing the number of school resource officers from one to two.