Strengthening standards for activity involvement leads to student success

There’s a reason why sports, music, debate and many other activities are called extracurricular. While they provide many benefits and contribute greatly to a young person’s matriculation, they aren’t the focus of a core educational curriculum. They round out a student’s success in math, language arts and the sciences.

That’s why it’s a positive step for a 15-member Puyallup School District committee to explore strengthening the standards for participation in extracurricular activities.

The district currently uses standards from the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association. It allows students to fail two of the six classes they take, and does not impose a GPA minimum. This gives students the opportunity to get Ds in their classes and still engage in extracurricular activities.

The Puyallup committee’s proposal would change all of that. First, students could fail no more than one class and would have to maintain a 2.0 GPA. The committee is also suggesting three levels of extracurricular activity for struggling students. Students could continue some involvement based on academic success while working to improve their grades. At the most strict level, students could not participate at all.

It’s a good plan that the school board should seriously consider. About 84 percent of the state’s school districts already set higher standards than those outlined by the WIAA. Some of those districts don’t allow student athletes to fail any classes.

Meeting more demanding standards in order to participate in extracurricular activities might provide the extra incentive some students need to perform academically. It shortchanges our students when we don’t require the same success in the classroom that we do in their extracurricular activities. It’s not fair to teach them how to throw a football without holding them responsible for their education.

Not all of Puyallup’s graduates will go on to college and very few will become professional athletes, but what they learn in school will benefit them all.