A public meeting Monday night on how activities fit into middle school rekindled sore feelings about the Juneau School District’s ban on middle school sports travel.
When the school board decided to ban travel for middle school athletics – a decision that went into full effect this school year – many attempts were made to reverse the decision. Parents and students organized petitions, protests and spoke at board meetings, a group called Save our Middle School Sports started on Facebook and community members formed a task force to look at alternatives to the ban.
The school board wasn’t swayed by any of it. Then-President Sally Saddler said the board wouldn’t revisit the issue unless the district’s Activities Advisory Committee developed a middle school activities philosophy.
Floyd Dryden Middle School Assistant Principal Haifa Sadighi is on the committee. She says it started working on a philosophy last spring.
“It was almost like, let’s get this done and then that might be able to provide us with a platform for advocacy and then move into revisiting the policy,” Sadighi says.
Right now, the philosophy is a one page document stating the mission of activities in the middle school. It outlines the why and how with an emphasis on maximizing participation.
Teacher Molly Box is also on the advisory committee. She says early drafts of the philosophy included the opportunity for middle school athletic travel.
“But because the policy is there right now that there is no travel, it was contradictory to put it in our philosophy at this point, but the AAC is very supportive of middle school travel as an opportunity for all kids,” Box says.
The philosophy does say “intramural and interscholastic activities will be offered with comparable emphasis at both middle schools.” District activities director Sandi Wagner clarified intramural is competition within one school; interscholastic involves two or more.
“There’s no limit as to how many schools. Right now you can’t travel to do that, but five years from now that may change, six months from now that may change – who knows?” Wagner says.
In order for the board to revisit the middle school athletic travel ban, three board members would have to agree to put it on the agenda. Board member Brian Holst asked to do just that in November. No one else on the board supported him.
Middle school parent Scott McAdams says the issue should be looked at again.
“What we found out this year though the Icebreaker Tournament is that if we don’t reciprocate, we won’t be reciprocated back. If we don’t travel to Ketchikan or Sitka or make a village trip or two, those teams will not come here,” McAdams says.
The annual middle school basketball tournament in the capital city historically attracts up to five visiting communities. At the Icebreaker in December, only one showed up.
Parent Rhoda Yadao has an eighth grade son who plays basketball. She said he was disappointed.
“Looking at going forward he says, ‘I sure hope the kids under me are able to have the opportunity to travel,” Yadao says.
The Activities Advisory Committee hopes to finalize the middle school activities philosophy on Wednesday and present it to the school board in February.
