ROGERS — Members of high school swim teams will be able to get credit and grades for swim practice, but the practices won’t count toward their class rank.
The Rogers School Board made that decision Tuesday in a 6-1 vote. Some board members said they wanted to make the district’s ranking system more fair to students who aren’t on the swim teams.
The new rule will apply starting with students who will be freshmen in August; the old rules will still apply to students who were in high school last year.
Under the old rules, swimmers could earn more points than other students. The points are used to calculate class rank.
Swim practice is held before school, during so-called “zero hour,” so swimmers could take eight classes per day instead of the usual seven.
The board changed the class rank policy so classes taken outside of the regular school day will not count in class rank calculations.
AT A GLANCE
Rogers School Board
At the meeting:
Board members saw a presentation about standardized test scores released this summer. Phil Eickstaedt, the district’s executive director of secondary curriculum and instruction, said the trends were mostly positive, but district officials will examine weaker areas such as eighth-grade math.
The board discussed adopting a policy for regulating student trips. Elements of the proposed policy included rotating trips between schools and programs and mandating that the trips be for education, performances or competition. Eickstaedt said he plans to revise the proposal.
Source: Staff Report
Class rank is calculated by assigning points to grades earned, then totaling the points. An A is worth 4 points for a regular class and 5 points for an Advanced Placement class.
Swimming is worth one-half credit. Over four years of high school, a swimmer could get 8 extra points, the same as a student who didn’t swim but took eight Advanced Placement courses.
Kristi Hudnall, the mother of a student at Rogers Heritage High School, complained to the board at a June 15 meeting that the policy was unfair to students who couldn’t or didn’t want to be on the swim team.
She declined to discuss the issue further with a reporter.
Joye Kelley, president of the board, voted against the change. She said the district should reward students for taking advantage of all the opportunities offered, including swim team.
Cathy Allen, a board member, said district officials should be careful to adjust the policy if the district begins offering more classes before or after school.
Jerry Carmichael, another board member, questioned whether the administrators thought about applying the change to all students instead of starting with incoming freshmen.
He said the change was a good one and fair to freshmen.
But he said it was unfortunate that swimmers in 10th through 12th grades will still be able to get more points than students not on the swim team.
“We oftentimes do things, and it doesn’t always work out exactly the way we planned,” he said.
Janie Darr, the district superintendent, said changing the requirements in the middle of students’ high school careers could open the district to legal challenges of the validity of the requirements.
However, she said the district will provide, on request, a letter explaining how and why the district changed its policy.
Some former members of the swim team said after the issue was raised that practice should count toward class rank.
“It’s kind of a reward for people who are getting up at 5:15 in the morning to go to practice,” said Sarah Conley, who graduated from Rogers High School this year.
The principals of the high schools said the swim teams have a total of 50 to 70 members each year.