School Board Rejects Policy Allowing 8th Graders To Play High School Sports
Author: Linda Kent, MT43 News Staff Reporter
School Board Rejects Policy Allowing 8th Graders to Play High School Sports
Linda Kent
MT43 News Staff Reporter
Townsend School Board trustees voted 4-1 to reject a proposal to open up participation in high school sports by eighth graders at their regular board meeting on Oct. 8. The proposal stemmed from community requests earlier in the year, and the board’s student services committee had developed a draft proposal.
Reporting on his conversations with a former Choteau school administrator and current teacher in Charlo, Board Vice Chair Chase Ragen said, “Eighth grade participation is just perfect for a program like wrestling.” Ragen was the only board member who voted in favor of the proposal.
Trustees and administrators raised a number of concerns about allowing younger students onto high school teams, including team development, morale of eighth graders not making the cut for high school programs as well as that of high schoolers playing on teams with students several years younger than themselves.
Ragen said that those he had talked to had indicated challenges with younger students in other programs. “But they did not have some of the processes that [Broadwater High School Athletic Director] John O’Dell has identified. So, I’m confident those processes are going to mitigate the concerns and challenges that they had.”
Under the proposed participation agreement, which aligned with Montana High School Association (MHSA) rules, eighth graders could have participated in all sports except football. The number of middle schoolers eligible to participate in most activities would have been limited, with no limits on students in cross country, music, speech and drama, or wrestling.
“I think this was started by MHSA and other schools to give them the opportunity of whether they had a program or didn’t have a program, and it wasn’t about program development,” Board Chair Jason Noyes said. “If we, as a Class B school, decide that we can’t field enough kids for a program, I think we need to look at the other issues. It shouldn’t take bringing an eighth grader up for us to have a program.”
Eighth graders would have been required to meet the same MHSA eligibility requirements as their older peers and would not have been able to practice for the same sport at both the middle and high school level at the same time. Playing as an eighth grader would not have impacted students’ eligibility to participate in a program for all four years of high school.
“Typically, we keep the middle school and high school separate,” Trustee Vanessa Flynn said. “Is that a policy issue or just a preference?”
“Just a practice,” Middle School Principal Brad Racht responded. “We try to keep those kids separated in their daily activities. . . . It’s the same with the elementary and the middle school."
“I can see this as a good thing for something like individual sports,” Trustee Daniel Truesdell offered. “I’m a little bit concerned for what it does for a team sport.”
“I don’t think it’s a good thing for team development,” Board Chair Jason Noyes said.
