By Greg Scholand

Greg Scholand is an Assistant Editor at Athletic Management. He can be reached at: gs@MomentumMedia.com.

Without basketball, Braden Zirkle didn't see the point of staying in school. The 17-year-old junior at Madison-Grant High School in Fairmount, Ind., dropped out this past November after learning that his grades would keep him off the school's 2005-06 team. Madison-Grant's GPA requirement of 1.67 sets a higher standard than the Indiana High School Athletic Association's minimum, and Zirkle's marks in the first grading period came up short.

"The only reason I made it to class was because of basketball. It was my biggest motivation to get up and go to school each day," he told the Marion (Ind.) Chronicle Tribune earlier this year. "I just fell apart there at the end when I knew I wasn't going to make it."

Next door in Illinois, the Rockford School District also has a more stringent eligibility standard than the state minimum, requiring athletes to maintain a 2.0 GPA each semester to play sports. Shortly after the new standard was put in place, the Rockford Register Star told the story of Deante Lewis, a local student who was going to summer school in order to erase a failing history grade and retain eligibility.

"I just don't know where I'll be without sports," Lewis told the paper. "So I have to make it right."

At the most basic level, these two student-athletes capture the opposing viewpoints in the debate over eligibility standards in high school sports. As more and more school districts pass stricter standards, proponents say that expecting good grades in exchange for the privilege of participating in sports paves the way to greater achievement. If you set the bar higher, athletes will jump higher.

Other administrators, however, see students like Braden Zirkle and ask whether schools are turning their backs on the children in greatest need of extracurricular engagement. "A lot of kids who are negatively affected by the standards are good kids who we really want to help," says Joe Toth, Athletic Director at Madison-Grant. "It's very difficult to call in a student who is working hard but not earning high marks, and explain to him that he can't play with his team anymore. Sometimes, their sport is all that motivates them."

Do higher academic eligibility standards do what they're supposed to do? Do their benefits outweigh any negative side effects? What type of standard works best—a minimum GPA, a simple "no Fs" policy, or something else? In this article, administrators who have grappled with academic standards discuss their benefits and drawbacks, and offer advice on how to make standards as effective as possible.

SENDING A MESSAGE
The state of Iowa has grappled with higher academic standards in a big way. After a contentious yearlong debate, the Iowa Board of Education implemented its "no pass-no play" standard this spring. Under the statewide rule, athletes who fail a course are ineligible to compete for 20 days.

"We believe that all kids can learn...failure is not an option in a state that has high standards for education," board member Mary Jean Montgomery told The Associated Press. "Activities are a privilege, not a right."

Previously, Iowa used the basic NFHS-recommended "pass four" standard, which requires athletes to pass at least four classes to remain eligible. "But state board members have felt for years that it was not sending a good message to kids," says Carol Greta, Administrative Rules Coordinator for the Iowa Board of Education. "The board fully admits there was no data indicating a specific problem that needed to be corrected. But sometimes you have to be proactive and make decisions based on what you think is right."

For most groups that decide to implement tougher standards, the philosophy is similar to Iowa's. "When a school implements a minimum standard, it sends the message that academic performance is a top priority, and that young people have to succeed as students to earn the opportunity to play sports," says Peter Roby, Director of the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University. "Athletes tend to thrive when they're given a goal—how fast to run the 40, how many reps to do in the weightroom, or how many laps to swim in the pool. The same motivation is at play when giving them an academic standard.

"The standard sends a message of what's expected, and over time, if it is well chosen and the school remains committed to it, students will be pushed to work harder, step up, and meet the challenge," Roby continues. "And if our job as nurturing adults is to prepare kids to be successful after they're done with school, then that pressure is important."

DOES IT WORK?
In Illinois, the Rockford School District had a similar motivation in mind when it instituted its new standard three years ago. Now, both middle and high school student-athletes must maintain a 2.0 semester GPA and pass at least five classes. Those who fall short are ineligible to participate in athletics for the entire following semester. Diane Peterson, Athletic Director for the Rockford district (which comprises four high schools with a total of around 6,000 students), says that school board members felt they needed to make a statement about the importance of academics and hold students to a higher level of accountability.

Is it working? For Peterson, the jury is still out. "I've had some athletes tell me, 'This has really made me work harder, I know I need to stay eligible,' and I love to hear things like that because that's exactly what we had in mind," she says. "But there are others who just decide, 'I can't do it, I give up,' and they sink even lower. If they're not involved in something, they simply won't take it on themselves to work harder in the classroom."

Peterson says one big problem is that the full semester of ineligibility drives some prospective athletes away for good. "Kids of middle and high school age don't typically think long-term. If they find out in August that they're ineligible until January, that seems 100 years away," she says. "I'm definitely concerned about what happens when those students are not involved in any activities. In that case, who's working with them or reaching out to them?"

Bob Sweeney, President of the Iowa High School Athletic Directors Association (IHSADA) and Activities Director at Atlantic (Iowa) High School, says in the wake of his state's new rule, many athletic administrators are asking that same question. "Often, your at-risk kids are the ones you most want to be taking part in activities," he explains. "The more extracurricular involvement they have, the more disciplined they are with their studies and their time, and the more motivation they have to come to school.

"When the school board was talking about figures, they discussed a 2.0 standard, and I remember the face of a 1.88 kid who goes to our school," Sweeney continues. "That student would be ineligible, but I guarantee you, he needs the activities. His self-esteem is much higher, his attitude is good, he contributes, and I know he gets a lot out of it. And in the classroom, I can honestly say he is working close to his full ability. The perception is that everyone who isn't earning good grades is slacking off, but that's not the reality. When I think about our kids who will be affected by the new standard, I know they're better off if they have a chance to participate."

Critics of tough standards also say that they lead athletes to select easier course loads to ensure eligibility. "I have heard that some students are now so concerned about their GPA that they're discouraged from taking the advanced placement and honors classes, and that's not in anyone's best interest," Peterson says. "That's definitely an ongoing concern for us."

But supporters are convinced that it just takes time for tougher standards to work. "As long as the adults put it in its proper perspective and help the athletes prepare to handle it, high expectations can be a great thing," says Roby. "There's always going to be an initial period where some people might suffer, but if you don't start somewhere, you're never going to end up getting the progress and the excellence you hope for. At the end of the day, most people don't want to have to ask themselves, 'Are we enabling kids to get away with doing less than their best?'"

In defending higher standards, Greta points out that some who criticize them have no problem turning athletes away for other reasons. She argues that athletic directors who oppose the new standards sometimes fail to see the big picture. "Many of the schools who don't like our new rule have cut policies for their sports teams," she says. "So on the one hand, they're saying, 'If you don't have the athletic skills, you can't be on the team,' and on the other hand they're telling the state board, 'We've got to keep these kids engaged or they're going to drop out of school.'"

Ultimately, Greta and others feel that the success stories—the athletes who bear down and improve their classroom performance in order to keep their spot on a team—outweigh all the potential negatives that come along with raising the bar academically. "We want our standard to help athletes focus on their most important job in school, which is to be good students," Greta says. "If that happens, then everyone wins."

CHOOSING THE SPECIFICS
If there's one thing all parties agree on, it's that the specifics of any standard must be chosen carefully. The details of a policy can emphasize a school's or a state's priorities, in addition to addressing some concerns about a standard's side effects.

In Iowa, the Board of Education's decision-making process involved a public comment period, followed by a series of meetings where different types of standards were debated on their merits and drawbacks. The result was a finished product with provisions Greta says the board hopes will make it both fair and effective.

For instance, after considering two- and four-week intervals at which to check for failing grades, Iowa decided to consider grades only at the end of marking periods. This detail was included to encourage athletes to select more challenging classes. "Our board members thought declaring a kid ineligible for not passing all classes at all times—even mid-quarter—was borderline punitive, and no one wanted that," Greta explains. "The whole point is to encourage higher achievement. If you choose to take AP calculus and you have a difficult time grasping one or two concepts so you're failing after the first test of the year, you don't deserve to be punished for that."

Iowa also crafted its policy to provide a little extra leniency for freshmen as they make the adjustment to high school life. They're allowed to take the 20-day penalty in a sport in which they have not competed before, unlike older students, who aren't allowed to take up a new sport in which to serve the 20 days.

At Rockford, the 2.0 semester GPA minimum and pass-five requirement encourage athletes to excel academically, but administrators didn't stop with grades. They decided that discouraging absence from school should be another major focus, and designed their standard accordingly.

"When we sat down and talked about what we felt was really important, one thing that kept coming up was attendance, attendance, attendance. If kids are not in the classroom, they're not going to be successful," says Peterson. "So our policy has a provision that allows no unexcused absences, either for a day or for a class period. That alone can make a student-athlete ineligible."

At Madison-Grant, the standard was tailored to reach the student-athlete who is struggling in all classes, but not to punish good students who are taking a chance on tough courses. The school abandoned a no-Fs rule two years ago in favor of the current 1.67 minimum GPA. "The kids we should be targeting are the ones in real academic trouble," Toth says. "Let's say a kid's got six As and an F because he missed a few assignments in one class. People were complaining that he's getting caught by the standard even though he's a good overall student. The GPA is a better gauge of how a kid is really doing in school.

"However, the school board did include a provision that you cannot have Fs in two consecutive grading periods, because if that happens, it's less likely that you're talking about a good student who just slipped a little," Toth adds. "The point was to make it clear that kids shouldn't be failing any of their classes, but also to give them a second chance if they have one bad quarter."

At Ithaca (N.Y.) High School, a recently revised eligibility policy focuses on finding who is in academic danger, and then giving them a chance to turn things around before ineligibility kicks in. While students with two Fs are ineligible for athletics, those with one F or two Ds are placed on academic probation. It doesn't affect their status with their team, but it does put their academic performance under greater scrutiny.

"When an athlete is on probation, they take a daily report sheet to all the teachers whose classes they have Ds or Fs in," explains Bill Bryant, Director of Health, Physical Education, and Athletics at Ithaca. "There's a place for each teacher to make comments about homework, quizzes or tests, conduct and effort in class, attendance, and current grade, and then the teacher initials it. The athlete brings the sheet directly to me or to their coach, so we can see how they're doing and track their progress in class.

"We're basically trying to grab hold of those kids who are not ineligible but are marginal students and get them to work harder," Bryant continues. "It's been an effective system for us."

READY OR NOT
Even though most athletic directors don't have the final say on what their school district's eligibility rules will be, they are still on the front lines of implementing the policies. And the key to this task is communication.

"When we first implemented our new standard, many kids didn't understand what we meant by semester GPA and the various parts of the rule," Peterson says. "Since they were going to be held to this new standard, I thought it was very important we take the time to make them familiar with it.

"So the high school athletic directors from our district and I went to each of our seven middle schools and did a PowerPoint presentation on eligibility for all the eighth graders," she continues. "They asked some very basic things, like 'What is a GPA?' I used a sample report card and explained how GPAs are calculated, the value of an A and a B, stuff like that."

Peterson has also put information about the standard on the school district's Web site. And she encourages parents and students to review it and ask questions.

At Madison-Grant, Toth says his department's preseason procedures are a big help. "All our athletes sign an athletic code that explains what the policy is, and we make sure it's not a mystery to them at our team meetings," he says. "When I have to tell a kid that he's ineligible, it's hard, but I just say, 'You know what the bottom line is, you need to get your grades up. And I'm here to support you any way I can.'"

For a standard to work, it's also critical to have coaches on board. It may help to point out that they have a vested interest in getting athletes to meet academic standards, since they're the ones who lose athletes if their players' grades are slipping.

"We've been encouraging our coaches to run mandatory study tables and find other ways to help athletes be successful in the classroom," says Peterson. "And one great side effect is it helps not only the students who are struggling, but the better students as well, because it leads to a lot of peer tutoring among teammates."

Peterson also adds that when a school board begins a new academic eligibility standard, it's the ideal time to request new funding for tutoring programs and other academic support for athletes. "That was definitely part of the discussion along with the new standard—finding new ways to make tutoring available and bring after school programs into our buildings," she says.

A final piece of advice from administrators on coping with a new standard is to remember that even if you have reservations, the policy was created for a reason, and your support can make a big difference in how well it works. "Everybody agrees that academics is the most important thing. The disagreement really just boils down to how people feel athletics fits into the academic picture," says Toth.

"But what everyone can do is make sure the kids know exactly how to stay eligible, make sure the coaches reinforce the message about academics, and be there for the kids when they need help," he continues. "And if we see problems with the policy, we can speak up about them. A standard isn't something that's set in stone—it can be revisited and revised based on what works and what doesn't, to make sure it's doing what it's supposed to be doing. As the people working with athletes on a daily basis, athletic directors can be a big part of that."

Sidebar: NO STANDARD
New York is among a handful of states where no academic standard is enforced statewide—instead, student-athletes must take a minimum number of courses each semester, and schools set their own eligibility guidelines. At Caledonia-Mumford High School in Caledonia, N.Y., administrators have decided against putting any eligibility policies in place, and instead monitor athletes on a case-by-case basis. Athletic Director Mike Monacelli says the arrangement probably wouldn't work everywhere, but for a small school like his (which has fewer than 400 students), it's ideal.

"We believe participation in athletics is a positive for kids, and it carries over into better behavior in the hallways and the classroom, as well as better performance academically," he says. "If we took that away from some kids, we'd probably have more problems.

"We've got a handful of D students and kids in the GED program who are playing sports, and I know it's good for them," Monacelli continues. "Some of these kids haven't got much in their lives that's pushing them to go to school other than playing a sport. And having those relationships with their teammates and the coach means a lot."

When athletes do post poor grades, Monacelli and his coaches use in-person intervention. "In our department, it's really a community effort to help the kids," he says. "After each marking period, I get information about grades from the guidance office, and I won't hesitate to catch someone in the hallway or meet them in my office for a talk about focusing on schoolwork. Coaches talk about academics with their teams all the time and keep track of any athletes who are struggling. They're simple steps, but they work for us."

Sidebar: EXTRA HELP
When an academic standard is put in place, how can you help athletes remain eligible? At Ithaca (N.Y.) High School, a program called "Student Athletes First" relies on volunteers from both inside and outside the school to assist athletes in getting a leg up on their studies.

The Ithaca City School District created Student Athletes First last fall with help from the city's youth bureau. Every Monday through Thursday for two hours after school, athletes (and anyone else who shows up) can meet in a lecture hall to do homework and receive study help. "It's a chance for student-athletes who are struggling academically to get some extra assistance before practice starts," says Bill Bryant, Director of Health, Physical Education, and Athletics at Ithaca.

In addition to IHS teachers who volunteer their time for the program, student-athletes from nearby Cornell University and Ithaca College are recruited to lend a hand. Bryant says this makes the program especially successful. "The interaction with college student-athletes is a great motivator for our kids," he says. " They talk to the college athletes, and it gives them a sense for the importance of academics in high school. They realize that no matter how much athletic ability they have, if they don't focus on academics, they have little chance of making it to the next level."

An added component of Student Athletes First is roundtable discussions about topics ranging from conflict resolution and pregnancy prevention to drug and alcohol awareness. The sessions include guest speakers who share their experiences and talk about how athletics can be a positive force in students' lives.