It seems the school had no choice. The initial tryout did not yield enough girls for a viable team.
Yes, the parents of the girls who made the initial cut could have acted like mature adults instead of being unwelcoming to children.
^ @austinmshauri - exactly. No harm to their daughters so why be nasty.
Also my D did not make the (very competitive) dance team Freshman year. She worked hard and got on as a Sophomore. Her Senior year the team ( which was not large) cut 3 girls including one who D said was very good. She also felt they should have just taken all 3 girls. She didn’t feel it took away from her or anyone else to be inclusive. Sadly she was voted down.
How does the above statement merit the reply below?
Sure every adult could act mature but seriously we know how it is vs how it should be right?
The most relevant statistic missing from the story is how many kids tried out in the first place. If 12 tried out for 10 spots, I would say let’s be inclusive and find something for the other two kids to do on the squad. If 54 tried out, then being inclusive is no longer practical.
I like the way DD’s school does the cheer squad. For sideline cheer, everyone who meets a minimal score makes the team, and there are both varsity and jv teams based on grade levels. Those who don’t make the cut (usually because of a lack of tumbling skills) are given the opportunity to see their square and have a meeting with the cheer coaches to determine how to improve their chances for next year and are then encouraged to try out for the dance team. Those who don’t make the cut for the dance team are encouraged to try out for the band flag line. Those who don’t make that cut are encouraged to participate in a no-cuts pep squad. The girls who make the sideline team then are eligible to try out for the competitive squad which has a set number of spots because of some non-school rule. D20 is on the sideline team but chooses not to try out for the competition team because of time commitments.
I don’t think it’s fair to equate sports with academic competitions. Sports require necessary skill sets to avoid injury. It really isn’t safe for someone to be participating on a team if they don’t have a certain level of athletic ability, whether it’s a cheerleader being dropped or a football player getting tackled. An ill-prepared quiz bowl member might cause the team to lose, but he probably won’t be sending anyone to the hospital.
The original cut off score was 87. That number was likely based on the talent pool that they have had in the past. This tryout season 87 only yielded 6 kids. Who knows why the talent pool did not hit the mark this year, maybe they had an off tumbling day and didn’t land their skills, maybe they forgot the cheer or dance mid stream, but you can’t field a competition team with 6 cheerleaders, nor would 6 kids be effective on the sidelines at a football game; so the coach moved the score threshold to 78 to capture enough cheerleaders to field a team. It is not an “arbitrary” number…9 is generally considered the minimum number necessary to put up 3 stunt groups and execute a standard pyramid, leaving 1or 2 cheerleaders as an alternate, in case of injury. What I do find arbitrary is why the coach didn’t move the number to 12. Which is the standard cut off for a small cheer team, as it gives you four stunt groups.
In cheerleading, like most sports, not everyone plays the same position. Only in cheerleading you can’t just throw anyone in the game; a base is not a flyer, a backspot is not a base, it is entirely different skill sets. It not as simple as choosing someone else off the bench to step in and play. At intermediate and advanced levels in cheerleading it becomes rather dangerous to swap positions. It is not unheard of and there are definitely some kids capable of performing as a flyer and as a strong base, but, in general, a flyer is a flyer and a base is a base. Let’s consider that it is possible that the 87 threshold yielded -0- flyers or perhaps no one tall enough to back spot. Maybe the number needed to be lowered to 78 in order to capture enough flyers; again I doubt lowering the score to 78 was “arbitrary”.
It is really unfortunate that coaches, especially in cheer, are routinely accused of playing favorites rather than being permitted to select the team that they view as being the most likely to succeed. School districts create these elaborate tryout systems, with minimum scores, blind judging etc. hoping to appease angry parents with a kid who didn’t make the team, but ultimately end up boxing themselves and still facing complaints. I am not sure what the best course of action was in this particular situation. No system is perfect, but I don’t think making a varsity team no cut is the answer either.
Per the letter from the school board in post #78
"The high school administration consulted with the cheering advisors who indicated that this change would not create an undue burden on the program or their ability to properly supervise the students.
Besides finding this practice aligned to our District’s core values and similar to our sister school, Whippany Park
High School, the Board of Education feels that Principal Callanan made the best decision for our students by having the Hanover Park Cheering Program be more inclusive. As per the cheerleading guidelines for Hanover Park High School, “The emphasis of cheerleading within the Regional High School District shall be upon group involvement rather than featuring the performance of a single or select individual or individuals.” "
I see no issue here.
@doschicos of course not…but would you want those even lower scoring kids dancing with your serious, well trained dancer? Would you be ok with letting anyone with a desire to dance perform on stage your dancer? (You didn’t seem to think so on this
thred…http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/2079681-please-settle-a-debate-dh-and-i-are-having-over-how-useful-having-a-talent-is-in-admissions.html#latest)
The letter states that this is a policy for 2018-19 not an ongoing policy. Without knowing numbers of students and each students ability level, none of us can opine on whether it is an issue or not. The kids who made the team could be a handful at the 70-75 level for all we know.
As far as my kid, not that it is applicable here, she danced with students of a range of abilities at her studios and companies. She was neither the best nor worst. I trusted the instructors to sort out each student’s roles based on ability, something a cheer coach can do as well. The coaches here obviously had no problem with it.
To clarify for other posters, @labegg is choosing to call me out here based on a comment I made on another thread that some experienced dancers may choose not to use their free time to participate in STUDENT lead dance groups on campus that they felt were of a caliber that wasn’t very skill or quality based. For some reason, labegg seemed to take offense at my and other posters stating that our kids didn’t want to spend their precious free time on an extra-curricular endeavor that wasn’t engaging for them. Not sure why it is being mentioned here - apples and oranges, high school vs college, school run and hired coaches vs student run ECs. :-??
There is usually not enough in the budget to support the varsity team, never mind stretching it to make up intramural basketball or baseball teams at a high school. A college with 20k students can have an intramural league for broomball or softball, but a high school with 2k? Who is the B team going to play? Who is the Debate B team going to debate?
You can’t just dilute the varsity teams for debate, baseball, robotics by adding 10 more kids who want to participate, and you can’t just form intramural or B teams, even if there is endless money, which there usually isn’t. I gave the example of the large, wealthy high school that added an entire extra varsity lacrosse team. It didn’t work because no one wanted to be on that team, they all wanted to be on the top team. That team had trouble scheduling games because other teams wanted to play the A team, or the JV team, not the ‘combo’ team. Even though a few other top high schools also had these B teams, there weren’t enough to support an entire league or division so they died out.
@twoinanddone thanks for explaining. My kids’ HS had a varsity and a JV (LAX) and often also a frosh team (bball, vball, baseball, softball, football) or “JV A and B” (that was soccer) for every major sport, or the team was open to all (swimming, track, tennis) but only the top # competed regularly or at all, depending on the size of the event.
My own HS had only varsity teams - tiny school - but I played on two and I’d never had the opportunity to play either sport before high school. In one sport I wasn’t very good and didn’t stay with it, in the other I was, and did stay, and did well. I would have missed out on the school athletic experience totally if there was some rule about having had to have played before, or no first timers being allowed to play or whatever. That seems sad.
@OHMomof2 it may seem sad but it is a reality. My son’s school had 6 soccer teams for both boys and girls and still had cuts. There was V, JV1, JV2, Soph, Fresh A, and Fresh B. Each team carried between 20 and 25 kids so close to 150 kids in a school with about 1,500 of each gender. The school is fortunate that they have quite a bit of green space but even given the space the bottom teams were often practicing on a hillside, not an ideal or necessarily fun experience.
Thinking about it; 10% of the boys in the school played soccer each fall, with another 200+ in football, 100 in XC, and a small handful in golf there were spots for close to 33% of the boys to be on a team and this is just the fall season. How many more coaches should they employ, fields should they rent, officials to be paid, trainers to be paid, etc. just so some kids don’t feel sad?
I’m not asking to be snarky, I genuinely ask because my younger son will be a freshman in the fall and he loves sports but is not overly talented and will most likely be cut in a couple of sports he is interested in. How many other activities would take/could take 5% - 10% of the student body into their organization the way soccer and football do?
I suppose that’s up to each school district, to set its priorities. And community, for that matter, as rec sports can be an outlet for those in it for fun only.
Ideally every kid gets some exercise, be it on a team sport or via “gym class” of some kind. My schools through 8th grade only had the latter, due to budget issues (which is why I arrived at HS with zero team sport experience).
Schools can’t provide everything for everyone. If the school offers 2 or 3 soccer teams, that usually means they can’t offer another sport or a second debate team or AP classes. Sometimes kids have to pick and can only do sports or band, not both. Also everyone can’t do ceramics, but those that get shut out can do another art or music class.
Maybe they shouldn’t offer cheer if only a few kids can do it. Or any other sport or activity that has such low participation allowed. At least in debate, they can all practice together, even if only a few go to competitions. But if this activity is limited to the 9 girls it benefits in a school of 900, why should the rest of the community pay for that? Arguably football games are spectator sports providing a school wide event to attend. Maybe some can practice soccer even if they never get to play it. Not asking to be snarky but seriously interested-would the school pay for 9 kids to have extraordinary language or music lessons not otherwise offered by the school? How is this different?
My daughter’s high school doesn’t cut anybody in any sport.
That’s probably why they’ve only won five state championships and two second-place finishes since 2000 in football, among other championships and trips to State in other sports. :))
By the way, the musical is no-cut also; they’ve had some pretty big choruses. Mostly female, though; need the boys to try out.
That’s great, poblob14. I don’t think schools should care much if they win state sport titles. The main purpose is education, not enrichment activity
@roycroftmom I get your point but the question is where do you draw the line as to how many people have to participate for a program to be allowed to continue? If 1% of the school is too small to be allowed to continue (9 out of 900 but really 2% since it is a girls only activity) what is an acceptable %? Basketball being a prime example where most teams field 10-15 kids at most, having V, JV, S, and F teams only gives you about 60 kids, in a school of 1,500 (of each gender) is 3% enough to offer the activity? With these calculations would there be any plays, musicals, jazz bands, art clubs, etc. if they were mandated to include 60+ kids in order to hit a certain % of the school population?
The other piece is where do all of these kids that want to practice soccer but never play it going to do that? In my example, with 6 soccer teams already there is no field space for more kids and no coaches to supervise. This would involve more money to rent fields, pay coaches, pay trainers, etc. There has to be an end to the everybody that wants something from school should get it.
My son would love to take driver’s ed at school but his birthday does not line up with the semester schedule very well and he turns 15 four days too late to be allowed to take driver’s ed. Should they let him because he wants to? Should they add a class to the semester that starts a month later and extends into summer break because he wants it? We have accepted that he either waits to take it as a sophomore and delays getting his license or we will have to pay for private instruction. It is no different here. If there is not room in the school program or a kid is not talented enough (or big enough, or fast enough) people may have to explore outside options.