The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education is putting sixth-grade students on the bench after a debate on whether they should be allowed to join middle school sports teams.

That debate ended last Monday with board members endorsing a recommendation to raise the grade level at which students are allowed to participate in interscholastic competition.

Funding and safety issues were cited by Scarlett Steinert, the director of district-wide athletics, as two reasons why the recommendation was formulated by assorted middle school faculty members.

Opposition to the recommendation was relayed to board members by Kyle Clements, a local resident and parent who claimed that academic performance is bolstered by sports participation.

“Athletes have higher grades than non-athletes, even when socioeconomic status, gender, age and family composition are taken into account,” he stated. “This is what a community like Chapel Hill tries to do; you try to improve each group.

“You don’t want to be unbalanced and give a benefit to this crowd or to that crowd — that’s what this community is based on.”

Another local resident, Hampton Corley, expressed similar sentiments to board members regarding the benefits of competition and exposure to athletic standards during adolescence.

“I don’t know if it’s much about the sixth-graders actually playing and making the team as it is for them given the opportunity to see where they stand,” he opined. “If they get cut, they get cut, but they get to show up, know ahead of time, ‘Here’s where the mark’s going to be.'”

Comments made by Corley and Clements were addressed by Steinert, who explained that the district may not have the financial means to support every student with athletic ambitions.

“Athletics is wonderful; let’s let all 250 kids who try out for the teams make the teams, and let’s make more teams and have more physical activity,” she offered. “I’m all for it — it just costs a lot of money.”

Superintendent Pamela Baldwin also suggested that the proper transition of students from fifth to sixth grade may be more important than a tenuous link between grade point averages and sports.

“To get a one comprehensive [grade point average] that would be higher than the rest of the student population — we could show the same thing with band, for example,” she noted. “Extracurriculars, we know, do that for students.

“In a transition year, it is extremely important that the student is supported in a transition that is not overwhelming and creates for that student the stressors of moving from an elementary school to a middle school that we know is detrimental to 11-year-olds.”

The recommendation passed in a 3-to-2 vote, with board members Pat Heinrich and Margaret Samuels dissenting after expressing a desire to delay the vote and continue the debate.

Photo by Travis Hudgons/The Champion.

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