
DATE: Thursday, November 13, 1997           TAG: 9711130441

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A14  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY DENISE WATSON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   70 lines

NORFOLK ATHLETES SAY GPA RULE MADE THEM ALSO BECOME STUDENTS

Last school year, Maury High School athlete Anthony Freeman took more interest in his scoring average than his grade-point average.

That changed after the School Board voted in May to require students in some extracurricular activities to maintain a 2.0 grade-point average by September 1999.

Freeman, a senior, plays basketball and football and runs track.

Like other students whose grades fall below the 2.0 bar, he must attend study halls to prepare for the policy switch. For Freeman, it's working: He has raised his GPA from 1.5 last semester to 2.1 this semester.

Freeman says the requirement is the push he needed. ``I didn't care too much about school before; it was all about the girls, but I had to let it go. Instead of hanging out in the streets, I now have time to go to a study hall and work with my teachers.''

The 2.0 requirement is almost two years away, but Norfolk began testing the policy this year by requiring students in athletics, forensics, debate, and one-act plays with less than a 1.3 GPA to attend study halls. If they don't attend, they can't participate. The grade requirement will rise to 1.65 next semester but will fall back to 1.3 in September 1998, when the official phase-in of the 2.0 rule will begin.

Granby, Lake Taylor, Norview and Booker T. Washington high schools average seven students under the 1.3 bar. Maury, which widened its pool by using a 2.0 guideline, has about 40 students who attend study halls at least three times a week. The students receive help from peer tutors and teachers.

School officials say they are happy with results from the first month of the study halls, which began in October. Midsemester progress reports at Norview and Lake Taylor show that all of the students improved their grades. At Maury, 85 percent raised their averages.

``I knew it would work; I'm very pleased,'' said Bert Harrell, Norfolk's athletic director. ``We'll be so much ahead. We hope that by starting early, we won't lose any students.''

Churchland High School, in Portsmouth, is wrestling with that very issue. Six football players were declared academically ineligible this week, just days before the team entered the first round of the Eastern region playoffs.

Norfolk was one of the last South Hampton Roads school systems to require student athletes and others participating in Virginia High School League activities to maintain a 2.0. Chesapeake passed a 2.0 rule last month. In the past, Norfolk students could pass classes with D's and participate, but School Board members, parents and teachers argued that students needed to focus on academics as much as sports.

Maury's Carey Long, 16, supports the switch even though it means he's studying before football practice instead of joking in the locker room with friends.

He said he needed this directive: He's eked by with grades like last semester's 1.5 GPA.

``If that's all I needed to play,'' the sophomore said, ``that's all I did.

``But I know a lot of colleges require a 2.0, and if you want to go to college, that's what you need to do.''

Norview's Curtis Skinner often skipped his homework even though he made it to football practice. But he's doing better in class and plans to continue with the study halls, even if he surpasses the 2.0.

``I wasn't applying myself last semester, but I'm a junior now. It's time to wise up,'' Skinner said.

``It's not hard to do; just do your work.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

IAN MARTIN/The Virginian-Pilot

Cheerleader Lakisha Brooks, left, helps football players, clockwise,

Steven Williams, Quentin Deloatch and Curtis Skinner during a study

hall at Norview High School. Norfolk students who participate in

extracurricular activities and have low GPAs must attend the study

halls.