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I do think it was a good thing! My mom even thought it was a good thing for our/their area to get its own high school. But losing that local ele school was tough on a lot of the old timers. The kids weren't going to school *that* much farther away, either.
On consolidation in PA:
The school from which my mother graduated in 1938 was consolidated out of existence in the early 60s when many of the smaller rural systems with 4 kids in a class were forced to combine and the building turned over to the volunteer fire department.
Fast forward to 2015 and the fire department has been trying for years to demo the building (built around 1910) and construct a modern one. There are just enough old guys still alive who stop any of those plans because they "love" that building.
As the Chief told me, "Those guys will be dead in a few years and we can get a new building". He's my age, early 60s.
Back to original programming.
As I said earlier, early pullouts for student based activities isn't new.
"What that means is the large schools, esp those in high economic areas, (I'll use soccer as an example since it's the one I know) can pick the top 20 players out of the hundred who want to play, all of whom play D1/D2 club soccer. Smaller, more rural schools, have to convince enough kids to field a team, only five or six of whom play club. Pretty obvious which school will dominate."
Well, yes, and that happens no matter what the set-up. We have county-wide school districts here, too, but in the suburban areas (Jefferson and Douglas Counties), they have multiple high schools. There may be some county-wide high schools in the more rural areas.
Don't you have different leagues in your state, based at least loosely on school size? We have that in CO. We even have a few 6-man HS football teams. They obviously do not play the large metro high schools.
When we were in C Springs, there were a range of districts in El Paso county. I think D11 was biggest by number of students, though D20 was close. D49 as I recall was starting to boom just as we left. We really miss it. Oh well.
For where we are now, yes they do break up by size. But the dividing points are not well done. There are big size differences in the same conferences. But that's kind of pulled the discussion off the original topic. Sorry.
Our school is about midway geographically in our conference. The opposite ends of the conference are about 2 hours east and west of us (meaning those schools are about four hours away from each other). It's those driving distances that cause students to leave school early. We actually had one overnight trip each season.
And, I do understand the distance perspective changes between east and west; we used to think nothing of driving up to Winter Park for a day of skiing when we lived out there.
Face it. Only about 1 percent of kids will get a substantial scholarship to college. And most of those athletic scholarships are not "full rides," but they are anywhere from a 25% scholarship to, if you're lucky, 50% scholarship.
Scholarships are not the only reason kids play sports.
I would say that in general kids learn a lot from missing school and then having to make up the work on their own. It is hard on teachers but really helps the kids learn to manage their time and to think about their commitments. That's a very valuable life skill.
To be honest, I'm not sure how to consider the problem of scholarships. I've seen the low percentage, but I also know that kids who want one can get one it seems. Might not be to their top choice school, but they're out there. DD was offered two 50% scholarships to play soccer but turned them down because she was more interested in getting her degree for the future than playing a few more years. Of the rest of the team, everyone who actively sought an athletic scholarship got at least 50% if not more. Maybe not a full ride, but pretty dang good. On grad night they announced how many dollars in scholarships every kid had received and except for the kids going to a Military Academy, the biggest dollar amounts were all athletic or band.
Out of that graduating class, there were I think something like 4 full rides, which would be which when you consider the number who actually went to college is not far off from the .3% Katarina quoted above. But there were a whole passel of folks who got well over 50% which when combined with the actual discounted cost is still a pretty good deal.
Why are scholarships a problem? Not all kids are good enough to get athletic scholarships but why are the scholarships themselves problematic? My son certainly was not good enough to get a sports scholarship. He did get a nice sized academic scholarship playing at a D3 school but that scholarship was available to the general population. I would argue that his academic money was more flexible than an athletic scholarship as it can only be pulled if the student doesn't fulfill the academic requirements of the scholarship (and thus is safe if a coach gets fired/quits or decides he doesn't like the player any more).
The D3 experience has been great for him. He is sad that his playing days are over (he just played his last game). I highly recommend D3 schools to kids who are interested in expanding their playing years but aren't good enough for a D1 scholarship. Some D3 schools are among the finest colleges/universities out there. Kids can extend their playing career AND get a fantastic education. Many of the D3 schools manage to make the cost reasonable through a combination of financial aid and merit based scholarships.
Why are scholarships a problem? Not all kids are good enough to get athletic scholarships but why are the scholarships themselves problematic? .
The problem is not with the scholarships themselves but with the data on them. The data say a very small percentage get full ride athletic scholarships. Yet pretty much every kid I know who wanted one got a scholarship to some school (mostly D3 like you mentioned which are perfectly fine schools). They may not have been full rides, but the amount was still a pretty nice chunk for most people.
That anecdotal success turns most sports into an athletic arms race for scholarship money with parents spending increasing amounts on coaches, camps, etc to get their kid the best shot at the most money.
With our daughter we made the decision early on that academics where more important than athletic scholarships. So she turned down a couple of scholarships from small LACs because they didn't offer the academic major she needed. I know in the long term she made the best choice for a future career, but it sure hurts in the short term since those athletic scholarships were bigger than the academic ones.
^^I think you missed the point of the D3 scholarships. They're not for athletics. As Momma_bear said, they're for academics, so you can't get your scholarship pulled if you get injured and can't play any more.
Your daughter probably made the best decision for her.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 11-24-2015 at 08:28 AM..
^^I think you missed the point of the D3 scholarships. They're not for academics. As Momma_bear said, they're for academics, so you can't get your scholarship pulled if you get injured and can't play any more.
Your daughter probably made the best decision for her.
You need to edit your first "academics" to "athletics".
I understand what you meant, as will most of us, but the moron is strong on City Data Today.
^^I think you missed the point of the D3 scholarships. They're not for athletics. As Momma_bear said, they're for academics, so you can't get your scholarship pulled if you get injured and can't play any more.
Your daughter probably made the best decision for her.
No, of course they're not for athletics. Coach at college X you never applied to just happened to randomly call you up and offer an academic opportunity. Wink wink. Nod nod.
But this has somehow been interpreted as I'm against athletic scholarships which is not what I was pointing to. What I'm against is the arms race parents get into trying to win these scholarships as if that was the end goal, when they should be focusing on helping their kids get the right academics (for their kid) for the career after college and sports.
Yes, our daughter is very happy with her choice of school and major. Two of her teammates who got scholarships to play at LACs have changed schools after their first year because they weren't happy there. Not trying to be one sided here because three of her other teammates seem to be happy where they went. My only point was focus first on college fit rather than scholarship package because if you aren't happy where you wind up, you won't do as well.
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