THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 19, 1996 TAG: 9609190349
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY VANEE VINES, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: 81 lines
The school district's ``waiver policy,'' tacked on last month to a 2.0 minimum grade-point-average rule for participation in extracurricular activities, has become such a tangled matter that what the School Board will decide tonight on a draft of the official policy still is unclear.
``We just found that as we tightened up something in one place, something else was loosened up,'' School Board Attorney George Willson said Wednesday.
Unforeseen details that have popped up will be brought to the board's attention tonight, he said, declining to discuss specifics.
The waiver policy, as it was approved last month, gives only students new to the district a grace period to meet the minimum requirement.
Such students may participate in high school extracurricular activities in Portsmouth if they had been eligible to do so in their previous districts - even if their last semester averages fell below a 2.0, the equivalent of a C.
But those students must acquire at least a 2.0 average at the end of their first nine-week grading period in Portsmouth. Otherwise, they won't be eligible to participate in activities ranging from band to wrestling.
The waiver policy took effect last month. But the board left the official, written policy to be smoothed out by Willson, in consultation with Superintendent Richard D. Trumble.
At least one board member, Chairman Byron P. Kloeppel, says the waiver policy still targets too narrow a group of students.
Kloeppel has said that students already in the district also should be given a probationary period of some sort to bring their semester averages up, if necessary.
Parent activist Lucy Thompson agreed.
``I think limiting it just to (students new to the district) cheats some of our kids already here,'' she said this week.
There appears to be little support on the board for expanding the policy beyond newcomers, however.
Trumble opposed the waiver policy, and previously said he also opposed any type of probationary period for a 2.0 rule.
Such measures, Trumble said, dilute the rule's strength. He also has raised concerns about the waiver policy possibly discriminating against students already in the district.
And at the board's work session last week, Trumble said the agreed-upon length of the probationary period - nine weeks - still had to be dealt with because the issue was complicated by high school ``block scheduling.''
That method of scheduling classes basically allows educators to extend the length of the typical class, thus covering more material over the course of a school year.
What was once covered in a traditional nine-week grading period is covered in about half the time under block scheduling. So, the probationary period could be shortened, as one possible solution.
The School Board voted in 1993 for the 2.0 requirement to take effect this school year.
Portsmouth and Suffolk are the only South Hampton Roads districts with the 2.0 rule. Virginia Beach is now considering a similar move.
Suffolk's board added a broader type of probationary period to its 2.0 rule in August 1994, before the rule was to take effect in the 1994-95 year.
The case of I.C. Norcom High junior TaRon Anderson, one of the region's best high school running backs, led the Portsmouth board to adopt the waiver policy.
Anderson was enrolled at Virginia Beach's Tallwood High his first two years of high school and was eligible to play football there.
He recently moved to Portsmouth to live with his sister, Pina Jackson, and her husband, Robert Jackson, a Norcom assistant football coach.
Anderson's mother died late last year. He said her illness and subsequent death made it hard for him to concentrate on schoolwork in his last semester at Tallwood, resulting in D-range grades.
Pina Jackson is now his legal guardian. She and other sympathizers argued that he needed football to stay on track at this point in his life.
The waiver policy cleared the way for him to play on Norcom's varsity football team. It does not apply solely to him, however.
The number of students now eligible under the policy was not available this week, administrators said.
With the exception of Portsmouth and Suffolk, other area school districts follow the Virginia High School League's standard.
That standard says students simply must have passed at least five courses in the previous semester and be enrolled in at least five courses in the current semester to participate in competitive activities.
KEYWORDS: ELIGIBILITY PORTSMOUTH SCHOOLS by CNB