Connecticut School Strengthens Eligibility Requirements For Sports

Record-Journal

http://www.myrecordjournal.com/wallingford/article_f9d0e026-c1c9-11e2-8ee3-0019bb2963f4.html

The requirements for students to be eligible for high school sports have become tougher.

Parents interviewed Monday largely supported the new requirements, saying athletics shouldn’t take priority over education.

“I think it’s excellent,” said Chris Gavin, who was watching her daughter and the Sheehan High School softball team play Lyman Hall. “They go to school for an education, not for sports.”

The Board of Education voted to adopt the new requirements Monday night. The town joins dozens of other school systems that have adopted requirements that exceed the state minimum.

The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference requires that students pass four full-time courses during the school year to be eligible. This means a student athlete can have a D minus in four classes and fail the rest, but still is eligible to play a sport. Until Monday, that was the requirement in Wallingford as well.

“That would never fly in our house,” Gavin said. “I would hope individual households would hold higher standards than what the schools have.”

Michele Ricci said her daughter, who is also on the Sheehan softball team, wouldn’t be on the team if she had one D.

“My kids would be off the team,” Ricci said.

The new requirements, recommended to the board by V.J. Sarullo and Amy Labas, athletic directors at Sheehan and Lyman Hall, respectively, say students cannot fail any courses and must maintain an overall average of 70 or better. Students with an incomplete for a course must finish the course and receive a grade before they can be deemed eligible for a sport.