SAUGUS — School officials on Wednesday afternoon discussed the possibility of bringing the town’s athletic eligibility requirements in line with those set by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA).
At a meeting of the School Committee’s policy sub-committee, Chair Dennis Gould explained that the shift was an effort to “level the playing field,” noting that schools in other communities follow the MIAA policy rather than adopting their own. Currently, for students to be eligible to participate in sports, they can fail no more than one class per quarter. If the town were to shift to the MIAA policy, students would be allowed two failures.
Saugus Middle/High School Principal Brendan Sullivan explained that athletics can sometimes serve as a “carrot” to encourage students to boost their academic performance. But, in Saugus, officials have seen the adverse effect, with some students feeling discouraged by being left off the athletic teams and their academic performance slipping as a result.
School Committee Vice Chair John Hatch emphasized that the primary goal for the district was still the “moonshot” set by Superintendent Erin McMahon — to boost MCAS scores from the bottom 10 percent of the state to the top 10 percent — and that the potential revision of athletic eligibility was not a de-emphasis of academic performance.
Instead, Sullivan said, the shift was motivated by a desire to drive student engagement in after-school programs.
“It’s not that we’re trying to lower the academic expectations on our students,” he said. “One of the things that we are trying to do is increase engagement and participation in the life of school for all of our students.”
If the School Committee were to formally vote to shift the policy, Sullivan said eligibility requirements couldn’t be changed until the start of the 2023-24 school year. Both Sullivan and Gould emphasized the need for properly communicating the shift to families.
“The thing we really need to do is package and communicate it in a way … so people realize we’re really trying to get that growth of the kids as part of the academics, all these other skills they learn in the sports,” said Gould.
Deputy Superintendent Margo Ferrick said the district viewed athletics as a way to offer “wraparound” services to students.
“Students really need to be able to advocate with their coach, with their teacher, and some kids are going to need more support in that … maybe they’re not going to want to see the adjustment counselor, but they have a great relationship with their coach,” Ferrick said. “Coaches are always willing to be brought in as a support, whatever the students need, but it’s really got to be centered around the student.”
A key part of any policy shift, Sullivan said, is ensuring there are systems in place to hold students accountable on the academic side and keeping them on track with their work. He cited the building of the tutoring hub as part of the early college program at the high school as an example of a place where students could go for extra help.
“We’ve been working with IT and the athletic department to do a better job of helping coaches who aren’t members of the full-time staff, to have communication with teachers to be on the email list to know what’s going on, so that they can help in this part of keeping students engaged in the lifeblood of schools,” he said.
The sub-committee ultimately decided not to take a vote on a policy change, pending a recommendation from the athletic sub-committee, of which Hatch is a member.
The sub-committee also considered a new allergen policy drafted by Ferrick that redesignates the Veterans Early Learning Center as an “allergy-aware” school as opposed to a peanut-free campus.
Ferrick said the shift was driven in part by the difficulty of managing to keep allergens out.
“It just opens up a lot of liability,” she said. The new policy, she said, essentially says, “We’re going to try hard.”
The consolidation of town schools also forced the shift, Ferrick said, with the Veterans Early Learning Center (VELC) standing out among previous elementary schools as the only peanut-free campus.
The committee — comprised of Gould, Hatch, School Committee member Leigh Gerow and three parents — voted unanimously to accept the new policy.
