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Principal Amanda O'Nan established standards this school year that exceed the S.C. High School League's eligibility requirements for student-athletes. However, the Beaufort County School
District has said she doesn't have the power to enforce the policy or
discipline those who ignore it.
That could change, however, at a meeting next week when officials will begin creating a standard
policy that will apply to all four area high schools.
During a meeting Thursday of Hilton Head High's School Improvement Council, O'Nan defended her policy that imposes stricter academic requirements for athletes than those mandated by the league, the major sanctioning body for the state's high school athletics.
The district's principals and athletics directors will meet Tuesday to discuss creating a standard policy, according to Bill Evans, director of school
relations, guidance and athletics for the district. Evans attended Thursday's school improvement council meeting.
"We've got to take something that everyone can agree on," Evans said. "Consistency is the key here. We've got to walk away with something that everyone is going to support and enforce at their schools."
Even if officials come up with a policy, it would require further approval from superintendent Valerie Truesdale, Evans said. Truesdale then would make a recommendation to the school board, who would vote on the matter, Evans said.
O'Nan's policy, which also applies to non-athletic extracurricular activities, requires tutoring sessions for participants who are failing classes and forces them to miss practice, games and other activities if their academic performance does not improve. The plan also monitors
student academic performance through bi-weekly grade
reports.
O'Nan said one Hilton Head High coach, whom she declined to name, has not followed her guidelines, but said the district told her she cannot enforce eligibility rules that the other three high schools have not adopted.
The Beaufort County School Board also discussed stricter eligibility guidelines at its meeting this week.
DIFFERING STANCES
League rules require a student to pass at least five credits the previous year and two credits the previous semester to be eligible for a first-semester sport.
An athlete competing in a second-semester sport must pass four half-units during the first semester.
All athletes must have a passing grade average -- a 1.0 on a 4-point scale -- in the previous semester.
"The current policy is a joke," Hilton Head High school improvement council chairwoman Barb Willett said. "We need to raise the bar. If the kids aren't making an effort, they shouldn't be representing our
schools in extracurricular
activities."
Battery Creek athletics director John Drafts predicts
resistance to higher standards.
"I would be very wary of that simply because the teams we compete against don't do it, and that would put us at a disadvantage," Drafts added. "I'm all for kids being forced to go to study hall, but I wouldn't want rules to apply to us that didn't apply elsewhere."
Beaufort High School athletics director Jerry Linn said that if the district implements new requirements, he prefers the changes take place in 2009-10 rather than in the middle of this school year.
"But whatever they come up with, we will comply with," he said.
At Beaufort and Battery Creek high schools, under-performing athletes are required to attend tutoring or study halls, but neither school forces an athlete to miss practices or games if classroom performance doesn't improve. Calls made Thursday evening to Bluffton High School principal Robert Anderson on that school's policy weren't
returned.
AT HILTON HEAD HIGH
Last spring, O'Nan, along with members of the her faculty and staff, drafted rules that require teachers to turn in grade checks for every student participating in an extracurricular activity.
If that student is failing any class, he or she is required to
attend tutoring sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
If a student skips the tutoring session, he or she must sit out of practices and events.
If the student's grade(s) don't improve after two weeks, he or she is not allowed to participate in the activity's next event.
O'Nan sent the draft to all her high school's coaches last spring. She has used it for this year's fall sports and activities, but not everyone is abiding by it, she said.
"There's one coach (who) is defying it," O'Nan said during Thursday's meeting. "There's a coach (who) is playing players (who) shouldn't be playing. That's how it got to where it is now."
