THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 6, 1997 TAG: 9702060344
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DENISE WATSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 47 lines
A district-wide task force will conduct two public hearings next week to get input on whether the school system should raise the academic requirements for students who play sports and participate in extracurricular activities.
Norfolk might be the latest in South Hampton Roads to require students to maintain a C average in order to participate in activities governed by the Virginia High School League. The VHSL oversees high school athletics, debate and some other activities. Under existing policy, students could have a D-minus average and participate.
Suffolk and Portsmouth have changed their policies and Virginia Beach is considering similar action.
The Athletic Advisory Committee is composed of coaches, principals, students, parents, school board members and school administrators, and has met three times since December to study the ``movement'' to change requirements, to look at what other districts have done and to collect data.
This wouldn't be the first time Norfolk has raised the bar.
``We dealt with increasing the averages back in the early '80s,'' said Deputy Superintendent Frank Sellew, who is chairing the committee.
``Then students had to pass four subjects and we changed it to passing five.''
Looking at statistics from a semester in the 1995-96 school year, about 25 percent of student athletes in the city had averages below 2.0.
Averages fluctuated greatly by teams, and males fared worse than females. For example, 45 percent of male basketball players across the city were below the 2.0 line while 21 percent of female basketball players fell below the average.
Sellew said athletes tended to have better grades than non-athletes.
The task force has brainstormed ideas it could include in a possible policy: phasing in the new requirement over a course of three semesters, and allowing a ``one-career slip,'' meaning students could miss the bar only one semester but would have to pull up grades by the next.
Requiring athletes to take study hall is another possibility.
Sellew said the 18-member committee is divided on the issue.
``Some believe we should raise the standard and some folks believe we ought to leave it where it is,'' Sellew said.
The committee hopes to make a proposal to the School Board in March. MEMO: The public hearings will be held at 7 p.m., Monday at Ruffner
Middle School and at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Northside Middle.