<p>Texas public school students are subject to “no pass no play” which means they can’t participate in their EC if they are failing a class. But there are different rules for when a student is suspended from an EC for cause (e.g. drinking, sending naughty pictures on your cell phone). In that case the student is required to attend the activity, but cannot participate or wear school/team attire.</p>
<p>SO, D’s drill team has an out of town competition this weekend for which they’ve each had to pay a few hundred dollars. Dancer A who got a 68 in Pre-Calc is *not permitted *to go on the trip and has to forfeit the money she paid for the trip. Dancer B who got a Minor in Possession ticket is *required *to go on the trip, but she can’t dance or wear team attire.</p>
<p>No. Makes no sense. I think they should both go and not be able to participate. Player A is on academic probation, Dancer B is on behavioral probation. The common denominator is probation.</p>
<p>The logic, I presume, goes something like this: Player A is probably not allowed to attend practice because they are assuming her grade is related to not studying and/or using her TIME wisely. They are giving it back to her to get her grades up. Dancer B has also proven not to use her outside time wisely and is therefore tethered to a more structured experience. As they say, the punishment fits the crime.</p>
<p>At our school, one (drinking) would be a state high school league rule (that applies to all schools) and one (min grades) would be a school rule (instituted by the school). I think in your case it’s just too bad that both ended up being instituted on the same day. Our state high school rule is the same (drinking) with increasing penalities for infractions over the 4 year period. The school rule about grades are nothing lower than a C or C-. I think it’s the latter. But when the average is a C, you have to go to restricted study hall and attend all tutorial hours (a 40 minute period built into the school day twice a week) with that teacher. In other words, you have to institute a plan for bringing up your grades. However, you STILL have to attend practice but you just can’t compete. So our kid with a C- average might still be able to go on the trip because the idea would be she has to learn to manage her time and utilize the resources available to her during the school day while learning to balance the obligations of her EC.</p>
<p>So… If it were me, I would try to approach the administration with the idea that the punishment to not attend is not going to help this kid balance her time in the future. She needs a better academic plan that includes both the time required of academics and that of her EC.</p>
<p>The ridiculous thing about “no pass no play” is that they still attend practices…at least in this case since drill team is a class. She practices but can’t perform. The academic probation part is state law.</p>
<p>Of course, the other silliness is that MIP girl gets to still stay two nights in hotel room with her girlfriends. Who do you think is more likely to get into trouble on the trip? Drinking girl or failing Pre-Calc girl?</p>
<p>I don’t think a public school can force a kid to do an activity that requires a fee, unless the school is willing to eat the fee themselves. There is also the issue of parents giving permission to attend an event off campus. If you withhold permission, there is no way the school can force the child to go.</p>
<p>All of the activities in which my kids have been involved start collecting money for the overnight trips in the fall, so you can spread the payments out in installments rather than in a lump sum. It’s almost always the case that by the time the student is forbidden to go, the trip has been paid for.</p>
<p>(Let me tell you that there was some major student and parental BEGGING of teachers going on before the choir trip to Italy last year. Can you imagine paying a few grand for that one and then your kid not getting to go [during Spring Break] due to grades? I think a couple of kids sold their souls to their math teachers so they could go on the trip.)</p>
<p>Silly school rules drive me nuts as well. A couple of years ago, we had an honor student suspended because on Saturday, on his way to the recycling center to drop off glass from his family’s business, he stopped at the high school to get something from his locker. </p>
<p>Since the family business was a winery, and the recycling empty used wine bottles, he was nailed for having alcohol on school property. </p>
<p>hmm… I am sorry but I think if so many kids are doing so poorly in math, that says more about the curriculum and perhaps the teaching than it does about the kids. However, I do not know the size of the school or the caliber of students going. If they are barely getting by in their other classes, than it’s the kids. If there are a LOT of kids failing math alone, look at the teaching.</p>
<p>The wine recycling is ridiculous because, technically, if they are empty bottle there was no alcohol. sounds like Paul Harvey is needed: What’s the rest of the story?</p>
<p>I’m just using math as an example because it always seems to be math with the choir and theatre kids…sort of makes sense. I have no idea what classes bedevil the athletes.</p>
<p>School are full of “zero tolerance” rules these days. That way they can’t be accused of discrimination. Honors student Eagle Scout forgets to take his pocket knife out of his backpack after a weekend camp out. He gets expelled. That way there’s less heat when the suspected gang member is expelled for bringing his knife to school.</p>
<p>Or having to write a separate “I’ll be picking my child up after school” for each day — even if the parent will be picking up the same child every day after school. 185 school days, 185 notes.</p>
<p>Which might explain why the school insists you ALSO sign the school log indicating who is taking the student, what time the student is being taken, and what relation the person is to the student.</p>
<p>i will only say one word in the school’s defense of zero tolerance: litigation.
If something… anything… would go wrong, I would imagine there are lots of parents who would sue. Heck, they sue as it is! Blame a litigious society for stupid rules. Because usually its parents who dont want students to ever be held accountable. If I got in trouble, the last people I was ever worried about was the school. My parents were the real threat. For some reason, that is the exception these days.</p>
<p>Them’s the rules. That’s what I say to my kids. A lot of unfair, inconsistent rules in every school. If it’s an issue, take it up at the beginning of the next year to change such rules for consistency sake.</p>
<p>When my son swam for high school, I remember the top girls team did not win the first place that they were seeded to win, in part because their best swimmer, an Olympic trial qualifier did not turn in an art project that week. The teacher immediately sent a failing notice into the files, and she was not qualified to swim that weekend. End of the matter. Lot’s of unfair things can happen. There are kids who get under the rules because the teacher is not quick enough to get the note into the office or the office is not quick enough to put the hold on the student. If you are so unlucky that your late Friday transgression hits the file immediately, that 's the way it works. There are some elements of chance in all of this.</p>