ROGERS -- A plan to expand the number of sports offered during the school day at the middle schools might be postponed as School District officials seek more time to examine the costs and benefits of such a move.
"I'd love to have a chance to take a deep breath here and come back this fall with a little more detailed study," Marlin Berry, district superintendent, told the School Board last week.
Rogers middle schools
The Rogers School District’s middle schools include grades six through eight. There are four:
• Elmwood
• Kirksey
• Lingle
• Oakdale
Source: Staff report
The board in February 2016 approved making eighth-grade football, volleyball and basketball part of the regular school day schedule starting this school year. The board also agreed at the time to add cross country, track, cheer and pom to the schedule for the 2017-18 school year.
This is the first year athletics have been part of the school day for eighth-graders since 2008, when the district eliminated junior high schools and put all sixth- through eighth-graders in middle schools. Sports had been after-school activities since eighth grade moved to the middle schools.
The board's decisions came several months before Berry joined the district. He said he understood the board wanted to boost participation in athletics, the theory being transportation issues discouraged some students from staying after school for activities.
"And then also very much, the thought had to be to increase skill, to increase our competitiveness," he said. "I think that's some of the conversation you had, and that our community continues to have in terms of how competitive are we in our sports compared to our neighbors."
Berry noted, however, moving sports to the school day is no "silver bullet," adding, "We've not seen some of the things happening that we thought would have, in terms of participation or the way practices are being handled and so forth."
Participation numbers weren't provided at the meeting.
The new arrangement also has presented some complications in that it has forced some students to choose a sport over another elective, such as a foreign language or band, he said.
There are personnel issues involved as well. Some of the coaches of the sports that could be added to the school day this fall are also core-subject teachers at the middle schools; the addition of an athletic period to their schedule would mean they could not teach one of those core classes.
The personnel cost of hiring additional staff to cover those necessary classes next year would be $305,000, Berry said.
Several of those coaches also would need to become certified to teach physical education, he said.
Berry said if he thought moving eighth-grade athletics to the school day schedule was the answer to boosting the district's competitiveness in athletics, he would push for it.
"But I do not believe it to be the answer," Berry said. "There are so many other variables that create that competitiveness that start with high-quality coaches and facilities and the support and a lot of things."
Berry didn't ask the board last week to make a decision, but said he'd like time to better understand the impact the athletics move has made and will make, then develop a recommendation for the 2018-19 school year.
Bentonville, Fayetteville and Springdale all have athletics for eighth grade during the school day.
Charles Lee, the Rogers district's assistant superintendent for secondary curriculum and instruction, noted Rogers is the only district among its peers that doesn't have junior high schools.
"So I think there just needs to be a little more caution and examination, research and conversation with stakeholders," Lee said.
Middle school class schedules differ somewhat from the junior high structure, and the district's middle school schedule is "pretty tight," Berry said.
Sterling Wilson, a board member, said he'd like to see some kind of study of how sports classes affect a school's athletic performance. Sometimes it's just a matter of having some strong athletes in a particular class, he said.
Wilson also suggested it's the coaches who make the difference.
"A good example is Russellville," Wilson said. "They didn't have the very best football teams, but they got a new coach in and all of a sudden in two or three years, they're winning a state championship."
Russellville won its first state championship last fall in Billy Dawson's second year as head coach there. The Fayetteville School District hired Dawson in January to be its next head coach.
NW News on 03/24/2017