Sports groups taking a financial hit with School Board permits

September 18, 2026 · 0 Comments

Sports groups like Storm Volleyball may need to re-think how they operate in Aurora and beyond after being faced with increasing facility rental fees from the York Region District School Board (YRDSB).

Aurora is set to advocate for reduced fees and revised fee structures from the YRDSB following a motion from Ward 1 Councillor Ron Weese – and an impassioned plea from representatives from Storm Volleyball – at last week’s Committee of the Whole meeting.

The motion, which was approved on September 8, and will be up for final ratification by Council on September 22, calls on the Town to ask the YRDSB for a review on its most recent permit fee structure “with particular consideration given to its impact on not-for-profit community sport organizations and the affordability of children’s and youth sport programming.”

The motion requests the YRDSB to consult with impacted municipalities and not-for-profits and restore the fee structure in place prior to the most recent update or “establish a dedicated municipal/non-profit community-sport rental rate that provides affordable access to school gymnasiums for eligible not-for-profit organizations delivering children’s and youth sport programming.”

Further consideration should also be given to “programs serving children and youth with disabilities, including consideration of reduced or subsidized facility rental rates where appropriate, recognizing the additional costs frequently associated with accessible and adaptive sport programming.”

“The York Region District School Board has implemented unprecedented increases in school permit fees with very little warning,” said Kathie Sharkey of Storm Volleyball, who delegated to last week’s Committee meeting on behalf of Storm and “all other groups and families across York Region that are facing the challenge to deal with the massive increases in school permits.”

“The media statement that [the Board has] released indicates that they have gradually been increasing their rates since last year, but you’ll see from the table that it’s not gradual. If you look year to year, you’ll see that this year the numbers…are egregious. They’re huge numbers, and they’ve increased a large amount,” she continued. “We understand that the Board’s goal toward a cost recovery model, but the reality is that everyone is potentially being priced out because the cost is not being phased in a timely manner. Organizations and families need time to budget for planned increases. Public school gymnasiums are funded by taxpayers and are community assets. They should be a low cost to community organizations, especially not-for-profit organizations.”

In addition to the fee increases, Sharkey noted the Board is also stepping back from reducing the amount of equipment they make available to permit holders – volleyball nets in the case of Storm, for instance – and these changes are causing significant hardship for clubs.

“One high school that we host tournaments at, the facility fee has gone up 338 per cent per hour, just as an example,” Sharkey shared. “A typical athlete last year paid about $3,800 for the season, and this season it could be $4,500 or more, which doesn’t include other travel fees and team fees that are incurred in a season, and we have to cut as much permit time as possible because we’ve had no choice so that we can keep fees low.

“If we didn’t make any adjustments, each athlete would have been paying $6,500 this year, which is a $2,700 increase. A volunteer run program only has two options: raise fees, which excludes lower income families, or shut down the program entirely. Long established programs are giving up their permits, closing down because they can no longer afford the space. The biggest loss is to our youth and athletes will lose the opportunities to play sports and participate in activities. If a family can’t afford this increase of membership fees, and because of the high permit costs, their child simply won’t play, and what if they have more than one child? We ask the Council and the Province to take immediate action to force the Board to reduce the increase to a reasonable rate, giving everyone time to find a better resolution.”

Sharkey, on Storm’s behalf, called on Council to work jointly with other municipalities to lobby the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Sport to alleviate the situation, so “local boards aren’t forced to choose between classroom resources and community health, and establish permanent a permanent affordability framework that evaluates permit fees based on community benefit, youth participation, and the not-for-profit status of the provider.”

Support from Council was clear, both from the passage of Councillor Weese’s motion and in the comments made around the table.

“I think now it’s upon us with what influence we have to rally the Province and the School Board to see if they can bring us back to as close to where we were before to helping our community members,” said Ward 6 Councillor Harold Kim, who said other sports groups and impacted parents had reached out to him on the same issue.

Speaking to his motion, Councillor Weese said it was a matter of not only improving the situation for impacted groups, but for Council to show they recognize the value these clubs bring to the community.

“We understand what the impact is when an external body takes one of those line items that’s significant and suddenly drops it into an expense that is unbudgeted,” said Weese. “Many of these organizations do not run in large reserves, so basically they get into a panic and, at the end of the day, we know that when costs rise families suffer from an affordability standpoint and, in many cases, people drop out of sport and that’s not the intention of this Council – and I hope it is not the intention of the School Board.

“The other issue that is important here is that this is not just an Aurora issue, this is a York Region issue because it’s the York Region District School Board. I think it’s a wider issue, which is why [the motion] goes to the Minister of Education and the Premier, as well as all the other municipalities in York Region. I hope everybody will take a look at the work that is done by sport organizations and by our Town who’s affected by this and will approve the motion so that we can have a letter written that will express our concerns and also offer some help on working collaboratively with people so that we could phase this in over a period of time so it seems sustainable for both groups.”

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter