School boards should not limit student potential

Members of the Medford School Board should not stand in the way of student opportunities.

At the May 19 school board meeting, board members had a lengthy discussion on if a student athlete should be allowed to participate in two sports in the same season. The discussion was prompted by a request from a family within the district to allow their child to participate in both girls hockey and curling.

Regardless of the family making the request or the sports involved, the school board’s role should be one of setting general parameters for participation rather than deciding if a particular student athlete should be allowed to play in particular sports.

Prior to making the request, the family spoke with the coaches and with the athletic director and all involved were willing to give it a try. Try is the important thing there. Part of learning to do anything is trying and seeing if you succeed or fail.

They sought to follow the framework used in other nearby districts, such as Ladysmith, where dual sport athletes enter into a contract spelling out how conflicts in scheduling will be resolved and what the expectations of the coaches and parents will be.

Doing two sports in a single season is difficult and something that not every student athlete is able to do. The competitive drive and willingness to put in the time, effort and hard work needed to improve and excel at a personal and team level is fundamentally what separates leaders on the playing field and in life from those that simply bide their time watching from the bleachers.

The task of the school board should not be to limit opportunities to what they believe an average young person, or even their own children, should be able to do, but rather to create an atmosphere to empower young people to reach further and climb higher.

There are going to be conflicts with game schedules, practices, and other teammates, let alone the dozens of other things going on in the life of a modern teenager. The attempt might very well end in failure, but that is no reason not to try.

In a practical sense, the challenges are no different than the conflicts every student, athlete or otherwise, faces on a daily basis. If anything, it presents an opportunity to lean about prioritizing and meeting goals and setting and meeting expectations — all of which are important life skills.

The concerns raised by board members in their discussion are valid and should be talked about by the family, the student athlete, coaches and athletic director. Paramount of concerns raised is the recognition that the student part of being a student athlete must always come first. That said, those discussions and determination of success or failure should be made at the family level rather than having the door shut on even making the attempt.

The Medford School Board should adopt a policy to allow student athletes the opportunity to participate in two sports in the same season. The board should look at other districts to develop a framework and establish a contract with the coaches, parents, students and the district spelling out expectations and responsibilities. While school administration should be forthright in stating the challenges involved, the decision belongs to the parents and student involved.