NJ school says everyone should make the team or there will be no team after a parent complaint. What say you?
http://www.nj.com/morris/index.ssf/2018/05/inclusive_cheerleading_policy_draws_ire_of_student.html
Real life is not “no cut”.
So now everyone makes the varsity football team or there will be no team? And everybody makes National Honor Society? Crazy.
Personally I wish they would abolish the cheer squad, but if they wish to have one, why not hand everyone a pompom and call it a spirit squad? Seems it would take away the beauty and popularity contest aspects and focus on spirit instead. Might even decrease the eating disorders prevalent in cheer squads by being more inclusive. Yes, I realize that outside of school beauty is very important, but we don’t need to emphasize it in school as well. I like rewarding inclusiveness and spirit.
That is ridiculous. So many activities have cuts. As does life outside of school.
If they want to increase the number who may participate, perhaps start a JV squad too, by tryouts.
Hmmm … well I can see both sides of this. If you have many more kids interested in a particular activity like cheerleading or dance than there is room for maybe you have an A squad, a B squad, and a C squad. Maybe not all squads perform. Maybe some are at JV games.
I’ve seen high school theater programs expanded in interesting ways where shows are double cast or schools have 2 programs back to back and split groups of kids that way. Upper class men are prioritized. I think especially in a public school, it is nice to allow more to participate in SOME way. But I definitely don’t think every kid who wants to play football should have a spot on a varsity team or everyone is a varsity cheerleader if they want to be.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t mind if school extracurriculars were handled in the US more like in Europe in club oriented programs.
Not sure how big this school is but the article mentions a squad of just 10 which seems very, very small.
I have no problem with cheerleading being a no-cut activity. Several sports teams at the high school my daughters attended are no-cut teams; others do cut people.
It’s the “everybody gets a trophy” mentality. Ridiculous.
It’s cheerleading. Why should anybody get a trophy?
Our high school has a no-cut policy for most sports and many activities. We are a pretty small school (250 per graduating class). The reason for this policy has NOTHING to do with the “snowflake” mentality.
The admin’s research has shown that students who are involved in 2 or more extracurriculars perform better in school. And our district’s mission is to be the hub of the community. We want our kids to stay on campus as long as possible each day, so they have access to teachers and productive things to do instead of going home to (often empty) houses or wandering the streets etc.
The no cut policy means kids can get exercise and play on a team. Sure, they may not all get to play in varsity games, but they are part of a team and they have incentive to keep their grades up so they can be academically eligible to play.
Obviously this may not be practical in a larger school. I went to a huge high school and while I was a very good athlete, I could not make any teams because the sheer number of kids ensured that mostly Division 1 type athletes were on all the teams. So I never was able to ply a HS sport. I am so glad my kids got to participate in several.
@surfcity Absolutely a reason to have a no cut policy, as long as its practical. Also one of my DD played golf, at the beginning of the season she was the worst player on the team (never played golf before), by the end she was the #2 player and a regional qualifier. If they kept the original number of slots she would have been cut and never played.
My D’s high school was the same as @surfcity describes, except her graduating class was about 500. The JV girls cross country team had over 60 girls on it. All 60+ girls ran at JV meets. The varsity had the normal 7. And, that 7 could change weekly based on how the previous week’s practices and meets went.
My kids went to a no cut high school. It was great. They made a commitment to try to let kids who had stuck with an activity to be on varsity senior year, too. High school sports ought to be about kids getting exercise, and learning lifelong habits and skills that can keep them fit.
There are ways to make it so more can participate…such as having leveled teams (Freshmen team, JV, Varsity,etc.) or having “club level” teams or intramural teams. But that is not the same as saying there should be no cuts to varsity squads or other things of that nature.
It’s ridiculous. When I was in 9th grade, I tried out for the cheerleading squad. I still don’t know what possessed me. I had no dance experience and in the small yeshiva I attended before HS, we certainly didn’t do cheer. Anyway, they taught us a brief routine and divided us into groups. When my turn came, I put on my best spinny attitude and then my coke bottle glasses flew off of my face and halfway across the room. I was so near-sighted I couldn’t even find my glasses by myself! Needless to say I didn’t make the squad. I survived. When I told my mom, she laughed with me and made me a favorite meal. It didn’t cross her mind or mine to demand that I be placed on the squad. I gave it my best shot, I came up short and I moved on. To this day, I still laugh at the thought of those glasses flying, flying…
What’s next? I get to be the lead in the play, even though I’m tone deaf, can’t sing or dance and my acting skills are abysmal? I get to lead the marching band even though I can’t play a note and have no rhythm? I get to be in math olympiad even though I can barely add two plus two? Where does it stop?
Enough is enough. My D was cut from the badminton (!) team. She came home, she cried and neither of us thought of forcing her on to the team. The next semester, she tried out for field hockey and made that team on her own merits.
As people noted upthread, life is not no cut. If I was a parent whose child was on that team, I would think about pulling her off and putting her into a different team, one where people have to earn a spot. I would have been humiliated if my mommy had to get me on a team. What’s next? Texas Cheerleader Murderer Mom redux and in NJ?
Some cheerleading teams compete in big competitions with hundreds of hours of practice, routines, travel, fund raising, etc. This new policy may take the entire team out of the competition.
In my high school of 1800 kids, there were 6 varsity cheerleaders. Six. I think there were 8 jv. That was it. Lots of kids didn’t make it. I then transferred to an even bigger school, almost 4000, and there were different squads, but there was still one group that was the top, and it had maybe 12 girls on it. I’m sure there many sad faces when those names were announced.
They do compete and they do have levels - this is for the top team which kids have to have tumbling skills as well. The “10” number is not the total squad but those that went to the BOE mtg to protest. School has about 900 students for context. Thing is - rules for tryouts were changed after tryouts, not before so basically one parent affected the rules. In the world of parenting girls, you have your band and theatre parents but watch out when you are in the world of cheer moms - it is insane.
Maybe what the school is saying is cheer is more like yearbook club or model UN or French club, all of which are open to anyone interested. Seems like they decided all grade 11 and 12 girls would automatically be placed on this team, younger girls on other teams. I don’t mind a class-seniority difference, it rewards those who remain involved.
This is what I think - not all parents have time or finances to shuttle their kids to gymnastics and dance lessons. If the school wants cheer to be no cut then I am all for it. Why penalize the child because for whatever reason they did not have access to all the advantages outside of school that the other kids did? Let them all on the team, let them practice, and if they work hard enough they can be in games and competitions. Life may be full of cuts but I think everyone has been in some sort of position where lack of experience led to them being “cut” - be it a job you interviewed for when you were young or some sports team in high school. After these instances a lot of us are left wondering how we are supposed to gain experience if no one gives us a chance? It’s nothing to do with a trophy for all mentality. It is about giving someone a chance to prove themselves. To that end with no cuts ALL the kids on the squad should be held to the highest standards of attendance, behavior, and minimum academic requirements per the school’s policy. That ensures that no one (and I mean the kids on the team that are amazing too) takes advantage.
I am a former Pop Warner cheer coach and there are no cuts there so I have coached all kinds of different kids - from those who had eons of dance and gymnastics training to children with autism to kids whose parents just put them on there because they wanted a cheap sitter a few days a week. There is no telling from a kid’s background just how hard they will work but if you give them a chance they will.
As an aside, when I was in school I desperately wanted to be on cheer but my anxiety made it difficult to perform well in tryouts. I was fine in practice but the pressure of 100 pairs of teen girls watching and judging my routines was too much. Had I just been given the chance to be on the team I would have gained so much more confidence in myself (that I have learned to have today) and perhaps the path of my young life would have been a lot different.