High school sports, choir, drama and other extracurricular activities will avoid being cut at Sacramento City Unified schools thanks in part to a new partnership between the school district and Sacramento River Cats.
The partnership will be announced this morning and officially launched Wednesday with a on-field, pregame ceremony at Raley Field prior to the River Cats game against the Salt Lake Bees at 12:05 p.m.
The Triple-A baseball team will offer a summer long fundraising effort to help the school district pay for extracurricular activities. Trustees voted in March to eliminate funding for sports, marching band and other programs for the 2011-2012 school year in order to balance the district's budget on a "worst case" scenario.
Gov. Jerry Brown's May Revise budget has provided optimism for school districts as analysts project K-12 education to maintain current funding levels.
Sacramento City Unified will adopt a revised budget for 2011-12 on Thursday, which will likely reinstate extracurricular programs, as well as transportation. District officials said if funding remains flat as projected, the additional money raised from the River Cats partnership will go toward supplementing and enhancing district sports programs.
"We are thrilled to assist the Sacramento City Unified School District with this very worthwhile program," said River Cats President Alan Ledford in a statement. "We consider the River Cats to be a community asset, and this opportunity to partner to support sports programs within SCUSD is consistent with our objectives."
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