Comments on: ATHLETIC Championships vs. AP Exams

By: Cal HS mom

Cal HS mom — Sun, 18 May 2008 18:34:56 +0000

Cal makes it very difficult to attend both due to the fact that tests are offered after school and kids are afraid to ask a coach to miss practice for fear of being benched. For anyone that has ever dealt with the Cal administration, they can relate to trying to ask for special accommodations.a battle not easily won, and without parent intervention, just won’t happen. I have heard that Cal’s principal wants to get rid of the awards night for the academic letter awards. Can you imagine getting rid of athletic award nights?

Key: When an athlete gets a varsity letter it is just presented to them at the end of the season, when a scholar gets a varsity letter they must make sure to submit paper work on time. No late applications are accepted. In order to get a varsity academic letter a student must receive a 3.5 or better for 3 consecutive quarters, not counting T.A or P.E. Receiving an
academic letter is harder than receiving a varsity sports letter and should be held in a much higher regard. Sad to say that a lot of kids are embarrassed unless they also have an athletic letter and won’t even get a letterman’s jacket if all they have is an academic letter.

Fact: If a student tries to turn in their paper work even one day late, they must wait until next April to display they letter.no exceptions. Wow. so a student that works hard for a year and a half must wait a whole
year to receive something that they have already earned. If an athlete misses the banquet ceremony, the awards are delivered to them… Go figure…

Sure would be nice for our society to view academic achievement with a little higher regard..

By: Cal parent too

Cal parent too — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:01:03 +0000

My student/athlete has had no conflicts between athletics and academics. They have however, had conflicts between athletics and athletics. This is an all to frequent occurrance when a coach of one sport puts pressure on the athlete to play only that sport. This is done in several ways but one of the most frequent is when the sports overlap at the beginning/end of the season or when there are practice requirements in the off-season. While I support a competitive approach to high school athletics vs. a more casual participatory approach, this kind of pressure is not warranted.

By: Coach

Coach — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:14:39 +0000

Jackie,

I know that we have accomodated athletes that have conflicts with the AP exam and the DFAL Swim meet. In fact the one reason we moved the trials to Thursday afternoon (From Friday) was because so money students had AP exams on Friday. There should have been no choice for your child…they could have done both!

Signed,
DFAL Swim Meet Director

Swimming is one activity that can be objective and not subjective like Baseball, Basketball etc… The time does the talking!