[EricH]

Originally Posted by nuclearnerd

20k is a low ball number. It costs:
5k$ for entry
6k$ for a coach bus for 4 days (flights cost the same for smaller / further teams)
5 k$ for ten hotel rooms
2k$ for 8 meals per person for 20 people

And I'm not including, lost wages / supply teacher coverage.

Watching (NOT COMPETING) is free registration. The original comment was specifically stating watching. Knocks off $5K.

Also, 10 hotel rooms? For 20 people? I'd think that 6-7 would be more likely (unless the district had some really nasty rules about students/room, or there was some other oddball case involved)--usually you'd get about 4 students/room, but add in a couple of rooms for mentors (typically 1-2/room). Knocks off about another $1K.

So... 6K for the bus, 4K for the hotel, hard to argue the meals unless the people in question buy them themselves. So that's $10K-12K, not counting lost pay (which... I'm not entirely familiar with how that works for teachers, but don't teachers get vacation time, or is all of that in summer/breaks?).