SAUGUS — The School Committee’s athletic subcommittee voted to adopt changes to the school district’s policy that would bring the town’s athletic eligibility standards in line with that of the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) on Wednesday.
Saugus’ current policy states that a student-athlete cannot fail more than one class to be considered eligible. By incorporating the MIAA standards, students would be required to receive no more than two failing grades on the most recent report card.
The move comes after previous discussions held by other subcommittee meetings involving the need for the town to become more competitive in athletics. At a January policy subcommittee meeting, Chair Dennis Gould said that the shift would “level the playing field” for Saugus middle and high school athletes and teams.
Currently, Saugus’ standards are stricter than MIAA standards, said Saugus Middle-High School Principal Brendon Sullivan. If adopted, he explained how the new policy would work.
“Students, if they fail one class, they’re still eligible. If they fail two classes, the second class makes them ineligible. This would align with the MIAA: they can’t be failing any more than two classes,” Sullivan explained.
He also addressed fears that the move would lower academic standards and performances in Saugus schools. He mentioned that the town’s current policy, which was intended to provide incentive for student-athletes to do well academically, has had an adverse effect on academic performance.
“Several years ago, and I was part of the administration at the time, we thought that we would make the policy harder, and I was an advocate for it at the time, that we would have a lower threshold than the MIAA. Our hope was to use this as a motivator tool for the students to keep them engaged. What we’re seeing is not reflecting that hope,” Sullivan said.
He continued by stating that when some students begin to struggle in school, they become more disengaged, rather than work their way back to school standards.
By changing the number of classes student-athletes can fail from one to two, it would help to keep more players on teams, which Sullivan said is crucial in teaching them valuable life skills that they might not learn in a classroom.
“Some of the skills that you learn on an athletic field are grit, determination, teamwork, about putting others’ needs ahead of your own at times, how to step up and be a leader, they learn those out there,” he said.
Later in the meeting, the subcommittee discussed how to increase athletic enrollment, as Saugus’ lack of competitiveness in school sports is a main concern. The committee collectively agreed that holding a sports registration night in August would help drive youth interest in school sports. The idea was marked down to be put on a future agenda to discuss details.
The athletic eligibility changes will now go before the policy subcommittee for review. If passed, the changes will not go into effect until the following school year.
