Your school district pays for driver’s ed?!
They may hold it at high schools in my area but it’s definitely not paid with tax dollars. It’s fee based.
There is a fee associated with it but it takes place during the school day, taught by a district teacher, and the fee is much less than the private options so I guess the answer is yes the district does at least heavily subsidize driver’s ed.
Our high school has both boys and girls in cheer. And yes, I think there should be a minimum number to hold an activity, just like there is to hold a class. My kid really wants to take multivariate calculus, along with some friends of hers. Why is your cheer a better use of limited resources than my math? Frankly, cheer is very expensive to insure due to high injury rates-as a taxpayer, I would resent paying for something only 1 percent of kids are allowed into. Only 11 may play football at one time, but teams here have 80 members, and we do have other levels of teams as well. I don’t know what they do but they seem happy even if they are benched. If such a tiny percent can participate, is it really providing enrichment? Cheer girls can find, and usually do find, an elite outside gym
I agree that outside sources can fill a hole in the equation, I just wonder in a school of 3000 students (my son’s school) how many activities would be cut if a minimum of 3% of the school had to be included.
I can say for certain there would be no tennis, golf, water polo, show choir, student council, model UN, wrestling, yearbook, gymnastics. All of these have space, time, or financial restrictions to how many could participate. I think when we look at cutting something that often draws mixed opinions (cheer) it is easy to say all or none but when it involves programs that are closer to our heart it is a little more difficult to cut. I don’t believe many on CC would be behind eliminating student government (for example) since less than 2% of the students participate and there are not just cuts but often arbitrary cuts based on popularity.
Part of the problem, IMO, is having such large high schools in the first place.
There is a much worse issue here than whether cheerleading or any other activity should be no cut. It’s that administrators have no backbone. If they make a policy, they should stick to it, not cave with the first parent complaint. And if the policy–whether it’s a dress code, no cut sports, zero tolerance, or any other controversial issue–is truly unjust, then the administration should revisit the issue and come up with a new policy. But once they have one, they should explain it clearly and defend it well. If it’s worth having, it’s worth believing in and defending.
Giving in to loud, demanding, or just plain rich parents is a huge problem in some districts. Years ago, my kids were in a very successful elementary school. One reason for its success was that the principal was very strong, backing the teachers in most disputes and not allowing himself to be unduly influenced by the powerful, professional, and rich parents in the district. The teachers had great morale and stayed for years, and the parents respected the school leadership even when they didn’t get their way.
" It’s that administrators have no backbone. If they make a policy, they should stick to it, not cave with the first parent complaint. "
In this case, they had a procedue and it wasn’t adhered to by those doing the picking. From the school board’s letter: "In order for the advisors to put together viable squad, the score was arbitrarily lowered to a “78” thereby allowing for the addition of five cheerleaders. Principal Callanan determined that the process was invalid due to the lowering of the cut-off score to “78.” "
“And if the policy–whether it’s a dress code, no cut sports, zero tolerance, or any other controversial issue–is truly unjust, then the administration should revisit the issue and come up with a new policy.”"
Administration in this case did look at it and obviously found issues with it and decided to change things, at least for this year. Cheer coaching staff seemed okay with it as well per the letter.
“Giving in to loud, demanding, or just plain rich parents is a huge problem in some districts.”
We don’t know if that is the case here or not. Parents complained, obviously, but there isn’t enough detail to know if it was warranted or not. Not all parental complaints are unwarranted. School administration, in this case, seemed to think a change was needed. Without further details, everything else is just speculation.
When we lived in Northern Virginia, there were 10 or so high schools within 10 miles of us, none small. Not sure how many more could be squeezed in - never mind the district budget.
@roycroftmom re#71. At our high school the only people paying to participate in the cheer are the parents…the school does vey little beyond provide mats, bus transportation to varsity football games only, and a non certified coach/teacher. Competition fees are paid for by the family, uniforms/poms are purchased by the family, additional certified coaches are paid for by the family, choreography fees are usually covered by funds raised by the booster club. Football is getting the most subsidized funding at our HS - the participants pay $50. Followed closely by marching band at $250. Last year for HS cheer fees were in the $1600 ballpark. Cheer gets no more support than say the Latin Club or Debate, which has the same number of kids participating, 20 -30 students in a school of 3000. Cheer is no more expensive to insure than football.
In a school of 3000 someone is going to get cut…it is the nature of the beast. @Doschiocos you may have hit the nail one of the nail on the head
@labegg Our high school didn’t have cheer. But unlike your high school, participating in any of the school teams or other ECs did not involve any fees on the part of parents (other than your own personal attire/equipment). This was a public school. Having to pay to participate in a school activity is too bad and I would think it might limit some kids from even participating.
@doschicos You bring up a point about large high schools. My kids went to a rural high school drawing from six towns. There were about 600 kids in the school. Due to that, while there may have been cuts in some things, most could participate in most ECs.
I’m not sure insurance is much of an issue for most (many?) HS programs; relatively few do pyramids and the like. I’ve never seen that at any local games, just cheers and some tumbling.
Cheer teams are probably one way to help meet the equality requirements of Title IX. Football teams are generally so large that it takes more than, say, women’s volleyball, to balance it out. Most other typical HS sports are coed or have M/F versions (soccer, baseball/softball, LAX, swimming, track, tennis, bowling…whatever).
@ohiomomof2 cheerleading is coed. Or I should say there is no reason that it can’t be coed. There are rules about what skills can be performed on game sidelines in most states, which might explain why you have not seen pyramids at your games. If a team also competes pyramids are an element in a standard routine. This team in NJ is a competitive team, in addition to sideline cheer.
@labegg - OK. In my kids’ league of 8 or so high schools I never saw one male cheerleader, I get in other areas there are some.
Come to think of it, our cheerleaders only cheered for men’s teams. Football and basketball, only. I’ve never seen the squad at a women’s team game, not even if they made state championships.
The small private high school I graduated from had no cut everything. Plus, if you played a sport you didn’t have to take gym, so basically everyone played sports. I was on all sorts of teams I wouid never have made a cut for. We had lots of fun even though we were terrible.
Regarding the “should schools have no-cut AP classes and slow down to accommodate everyone” tangent - my kid’s very large high school has what’s essentially no-cut AP Physics 1. It’s not slowed down a bit, and the average grade is somewhere in the low C or high D range. There’s plenty of support for anyone who wants to work their tail off to succeed, regardless of background. But even if you don’t have the suggested background and don’t want to work, you’re still allowed to enroll.
joined late, so I’ve not read every post, but I guess LeBron James has been mentioned?
Some years ago I narrowly missed an after-the-fact change in qualifications for a job I was trying for. The company announced it would give their standard written test to 100 interviewees, the 20 best test scorers would be hired. Upon the results, the company felt it did not have the number of minorities in the top 20, that they had hoped for. Rather than sticking to their word, or double-checking the test for biases, they negated the scores of the bottom few of the top 20, then sorted through and handpicked an equal number of the highest scoring minorities that had not gotten into the top 20.
Although that action didn’t affect me, changing the terms after-the-fact doesn’t sit well with me.
If the problem leading to the policy change is numbers, as roycroftmom says in post 80, this controversy would have been easily avoided.
Just by saying “the 10 best scorers” or whatever number. Then, whether a student scored 99 or 59, they might have a shot based on numbers of participants needed.
The letter from the school states this is the policy for the current school year. We can’t assume it will be the same going forward and it’s likely the decision for this year took the number of students impacted into play.