- Jun
14
2012
School choice supporters, jump up and down! Athletic supporters... well, do what feels comfortable.
This spring, thirty South Dakota schools pushed an amendment to state high school activity association rules that would have required open enrolling students to sacrifice their eligibility for varsity sports for a full year. The SDSHAA has counted ballots and says 58% of schools backed this measure. However, an amendment to SDHSAA by-laws require 60% approval, so the rules stay the same. Families seeking the best education for their children thus avoid a further restriction on their legal right to seek the best educational opportunities for their kids.
This proposal and vote suggest that a lot South Dakota school administrators spend far too much time fretting about sports and their varsity teams' records, not to mention trying to interfere with parents' choices. Instead of trying to rig the system to punish "their" top athletes (again, schools don't own kids) and any other students who for whatever reason may choose a different school, administrators should focus on assembling such a stupendous team of educators and such a rich, enlightening, and challenging curriculum that no residents in their right minds would think of jumping to another school just to chase something so piddlingly ephemeral as a state trophy.
26 Responses to “School Choice Barely Wins in SDHSAA Open Enrollment-Varsity Eligibility Vote”
While I could really could kind of care less about this, I do think your post misses what should be the bigger topic of discussion. That is kids, or maybe I should say parents, who move kids around just for activities.
Should you be aloud to play football at school A, and the open enroll to school B in the middle of the year to play basketball? Or transfer to play ball at School B for one year because they're team is going to be really good, then back to school A next year.
I'm not saying this was the way to solve the problem, but would like the discussion. Is it a problem, and if so what do we do?
Personally, I believe all athletics should be removed from the schools and run by the communities through clubs and other organizations. Physical education focused on a well rounded approach to all activities, yes. But this focus on organized athletics doesn't do us any good.
This is why I will never be elected to a school board.
Matt, I will move the Divine Miss K to a different school just to get her into a decent debate program.
I do agree that switching schools for sports' sake is a bad choice, just as calling in an excused absence for your child to allow him to sleep in after catching the midnight premiere of The Avengers (true story!) is a bad choice. But it's still a parental choice. As a citizen and a teacher, I'll look 'em in the eye and explain why that's a bad choice. But as a policymaker, I'm not sure I can justify punishing or prohibiting that choice. I feel compelled to grant parents and students a fair amount of liberty to make dumb choices.
But if that erroneous prioritization of athletics is a problem, how do we solve it?
Frank, I'd elect you to my school board... which probably only reinforces your hypothesis that you'll never be elected.
How many administrators are in favor of open enrollment?
Frank, I agree with you too. Sports should not be part of education, actually I think they do more harm than good.
I have always supported school choice and charter schools. I was a libertarian several years ago and you're not likely to find many libertarians who don't support school choice. I am from Indiana, and charter schools are common there. The Indiana School Voucher Law was recently upheld in Marion Superior Court.
We have something in SD called an Initiated Measure. If you gather enough signatures, you can put this issue on the ballot and let the voters decide to eliminate all sports and activities currently regulated by the South Dakota High School Activities Association. It would only make sense that a possible ban on sports and school-sponsored activities should also be extended to all college athletics as well if we are going to bring the issue to a vote.
I am not sure on the timeline on when petitions would need to be submitted. You'll need plenty of evidence on how sports and activities cause harm to students and why they should be prohibited from public schools. You could also include in your campaign all the cost savings in salaries, transportation and facilities.
Parents could make sure their son or daughter could play on a winning team. Clubs could pick and choose only the best players and not have to worry about playing minutes for those of average ability. Only those families who could afford programs for their kids would bear the cost. Poor families would be left out.
We could extend the school day to better prepare our students for standardized tests without worrying about cutting in to practice time. I'm sure that many current student athletes would be more than happy to have more screen time to watch TV and surf the internet.
Luckily, my kids should both be out of school before this law is passed by the voters even in a worst case scenario.
From my experience, though athletics may have some impact on transferring school districts, very few leave a school for athletics only. Does it happen? Yes, but in many cases there is much more behind the scenes.
Add in the vast differences in education from 1 school to another in South Dakota. Grading scale, 4/5 day weeks, block scheduling, classes offered, etc. I'd have a really hard time having a law like this on the books in South Dakota.
A big point of Cory's post was that parents should be free to make the decision about which public school to attend for whatever reason(s) they deem valid. Also, that school administrators should be too busy building and running quality programs to play defense with open enrollment. Why are school administrators (or other parents, members of the public, etc.) so concerned about this? Who are we to judge these family decisions as inappropriate, misguided or whatever? This mentality of wanting to "prevent" too much school choice, or school choice for the "wrong" reason(s), is paternalistic or at least none of our business. Efforts along these lines might better be directed at monitoring diet choices that parents allow their children. Better to watch the grocery lines and local fast food joints for irresponsible diet patterns that really do harm kids.
"I feel compelled to grant parents and students a fair amount of liberty to make dumb choices."
Oh man, can we get that on a bumper sticker?
I'll make it a classroom poster, Matt, and leave it up during parent-teacher conferences.
As a former high school basketball and track coach in SD, I think the impetus behind this is all about keeping any particular school from recruiting for their sports. I don't know that many families do that, but I know that some certainly do. It is not only about getting a trophy, but about college scholarships.
When I coached in SD, the topic of recruiting expressly for sports purposes was a major issue with the coaches. It always came up during coach meetings and other assorted gatherings, and was more effective at raising blood pressure than pretty much anything else.
Individuals from the school district visit with the family of the prized 8th grader, ply her/him with lots of attention and gifts, promise jobs and homes to the parents, etc. It's pretty big, especially in the SE part of the state.
Speaking of recruiting, I can offer a free end of the year pizza party to students looking to open enroll into the Madison Interp program.
Forget year-end pizza: I want my girl to have season-end pizza with the rest of the interpers and debaters in a motel room on Friday night before resting up for Round 3, 4, 5, and finals at Nat Quals.
Gifts? Jobs? Homes?!! Holy cow, I hope my daughter develops some speed!
Seriously, D.E., that recruiting happens at the 8th grade level around here? If so, it sounds like we need some stiff penalties directed at coaches/recruiters, not open enrollers. But how do we police activity like that?
I know of only two posters on Madville Times with direct experience with open enrollment. Unless your kid has gone through the experience, it is difficult to understand the process.
D.E. I am totally amazed 8th graders are being recruited! Life has certainly changed alot since I went to HS, or college for that matter. (I started out in college in PE.)
Does anyone know if the schools still have GAA? That was Girl's Atheletic Association and a long time before girls were playing sports against teams in other towns, execept for IA girls basketball.
I think sports in schools have gone overboard in some places and being a part time sports writer I've seen when it can to over-the-top. But I don't agree that we should drop sports from schools. For the most part get a great benefit from sports and the effects have a far-reaching effect in the community.
Having lived in a small community I've seen how sports can bring people together. Our football team has been fortunate to be very good over the last10 years, winning 4 championships. The pride shown in the community is huge.
I've had 2 sons perform unbder the same coach and they not only learned about football but they learned lessons that they've taken into their lives.
Keeping students from easily transfer from school to school might be needed but dropping sports would be a huge mistake.
ok- I can't type. sigh
I talked with AD about this. He felt that the real issue was as D. E. Bishop said. A few schools are getting competitive when it comes to recruiting students. The SF schools are one group and on the other side of the state the questions have been raised about a certain private school in Rapid City. It would not have impacted programs like debate or interp or one act. (I was a little worried about the debate one.)
I don't think it had anything to do with school choice, but not allowing some programs to turn their sports into a college recruiting knock-off.
As for those that claim that sports should be separated from high schools, I encourage you to try and reach the kid that is barely getting by in your class and not use his or her eligibility to help motivate them to do more. If you separate them from the schools then you lose all control over monitoring these programs. Then kids that can't afford to participate in sports will not be allowed. The controls over the hours of practice and travel schedules will no longer be controlled.
Mike, have any of those recruiting efforts ever been made public? If we brought them to light, would there be public outcry? Or would the parents and fans of the recruiting schools just pat their ADs and coaches on the backs and say, "Keep up the good work"?
I have experience in open enrollment as a parent and a former school board member in Rapid City.
I had no problem with open enrollment. Rapid City had a good orchestra and band program, which attracted some students from outside the district. We had some students transfer out to the base schools, because it was more convenient for parents who lived in Rapid but worked on the base. The number of such open enrolled students in the late 1990s-2001 were not high.
We had far more students opting for various religious affiliated schools, or home schooling, than transferring in and out of nearby public school districts. The religious schools recruited far more than any public school.
I didn't have much of a problem with any of this except for the homeschool release process, which to me was extremely lax and resulted in a number of kids being uneducated.
The problem is not the recruiting schools, but those that are playing by the rules. No one has come forth, but having talked with several different coaches and some ADs they are pretty clear that it happens.
Donald, to keep homeschool parents accountable, do we need a more rigorous release process, or can we catch them at the end with some sort of exam requirement? Or does college admission take care of that? Perhaps we could require every citizen to pass the citizenship test immigrants take before issuing their voter registration card?
Mike: if the schools playing by the rules see this as a problem, they need to speak up about it. They need to go public with the evidence, name names. I doubt sport recruiting gifts are covered by FERPA.
Dropping sports from school responsibilities comes up often here. Europe keeps sports private. But what if a community feels that the most efficient way to offer sports to the most kids is through their public schools?
OK, this oughta do the trick.... check out this link to an article, "7.6 Million Reasons to Keep High School Sports". Public schools are taking on more and more responsibility for the care and "feeding" (in all ways) of children whether some agree with this or not. The feds and state officials continue to mandate, and parents continue to expect that schools will take on more- without subtracting anything they are already doing. Even if it were desirable, it's not realistic to think that public schools are going to be able to offload anything, much less something as massively entrenched as competitive athletic programs. Here's the link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/eb649eae93ck3qw/highschoolsports%20essay%20from%20SDHSAA.doc
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