Eligibility rules (Citizenship)

[hssoftball101]

Our school has a grade for citizenship based on attendance and discipline. My question is would a D in citizenship constitute as "bad citizenship?" I have 6 kids with F's in citizenship from the fall semester, 2 of which were in sports so regardless of GPA, for MY team I'm making them ineligible. The kid with the D in citizenship has a 2.5GPA and is my best player and captain. Should I bench her or let the D slide?

 

[quincy]

You either agree or disagree with their grades.

I do not care if you let the Ds slide but you need to let all Ds slide.

The Players ability or imporrtance to the team sould not be part of the decision.

 

[csuttonthompson]

You can't have it both ways. It's either important or not.
Please do not send the message that athletes can misbehave as long as they are superstars. You will not be doing anyone a favor by breeding entitlement.


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[hssoftball101]

Yeah, I agree, she's the only one with the D and I'm not letting the Fs get away. I did look up the REASON for the D and it was due to one incident of defiance and poor attendance. Still I am going to leave her on the bench and choose another captain. Thanks.

After going through all their grades from 2015 on:

Out of 22 students, 6 are ineligible due to bad citizenship (D or lower) while playing a sport last semester (probation used up) and two are on probation this season due to only bad citizenship last semester. Most of them are my best players, but they don't listen to me like the good students do anyway. I needed to trim my roster and this was the right way to do it...I should have done this in the beginning because half of them had paid for their uniforms and gotten their names on their jerseys already.

 

[djcarter1966]

Is this KINDERGARTEN? I don't know anywhere that citizenship can be calculated into your GPA. Is this a school team? If it is a school team the coach usually does not have a say you look at the grades and they are either eligible or not you don't get to question another teachers grade and there should already be rule about whether citizenship counts.. Ask the AD if it's a school team since you don't get to make policy. If it's a rec team I'm pretty sure you can't use school grades against them and mandatory play rules would still apply. If this is travel ball it's your team and you can do whatever the heck you want....all this being said if you knew they were ineligible when they signed up but you took their money anyway you own them a refund.

A little more info and maybe we could provide some better feedback.

 

[hssoftball101]

Is this KINDERGARTEN? I don't know anywhere that citizenship can be calculated into your GPA. Is this a school team? If it is a school team the coach usually does not have a say you look at the grades and they are either eligible or not you don't get to question another teachers grade and there should already be rule about whether citizenship counts.. Ask the AD if it's a school team since you don't get to make policy. If it's a rec team I'm pretty sure you can't use school grades against them and mandatory play rules would still apply. If this is travel ball it's your team and you can do whatever the heck you want....all this being said if you knew they were ineligible when they signed up but you took their money anyway you own them a refund.

A little more info and maybe we could provide some better feedback.

Citizenship is not part of the GPA, but it is a separate grade altogether. The school board makes the decision on the requirements of eligibility. They have set it at a 1.5 GPA. I think 2.0 is required by CIF-SS and I as the coach can set my own rules on whether or not a player is allowed on the team. The citizenship requirement from CIF-SS:

217. CITIZENSHIP REQUIREMENTS
A student must be a good citizen in order to represent the school in interscholastic athletic competition

That's kind of vague, no? But since our school has a grade for citizenship, this makes it easy for me to determine eligibility based on citizenship. If they don't meet that eligibility, they're not going to be on my team. Heck if I wanted to I could set the GPA standard at 2.5 and require all athletes to meet that standard.

Since they're not 100% ineligible (they all have a 2.0 GPA and haven't been recently incarcerated) I'll allow them to practice and go to games, but they will only get to play if (1) I have enough eligible players to field a team or (2) I've used up all the "eligible" replacements.

 

[djcarter1966]

Gonna pass....this is the kinda stuff that everyone hates because nobody can simply be clear; school board says one thing, CIF_SS? (state HS org) says something else, then coach can set his own rules...all just seems to open itself up to a lot of complaining from parents and kids.

At the beginning of the year before tryouts all our parents sign a statement saying we understand eligibility requirements and students do too...they are copied and pasted from student handbook that student have already signed.

I'm also confused about 100% eligible and used up "eligible" replacements? does that mean they could play if you don't have enough? they are either 100% eligible or 0% eligible not really an in between as far as eligibility goes...do they get any chance to improve there citizenship grade?

 

[hssoftball101]

Gonna pass....this is the kinda stuff that everyone hates because nobody can simply be clear; school board says one thing, CIF_SS? (state HS org) says something else, then coach can set his own rules...all just seems to open itself up to a lot of complaining from parents and kids.

At the beginning of the year before tryouts all our parents sign a statement saying we understand eligibility requirements and students do too...they are copied and pasted from student handbook that student have already signed.

I'm also confused about 100% eligible and used up "eligible" replacements? does that mean they could play if you don't have enough? they are either 100% eligible or 0% eligible not really an in between as far as eligibility goes...do they get any chance to improve there citizenship grade?

That's the problem. The rules are up to interpretation. Does it mean you have to have good citizenship grades? Citizenship is a grade school mark, rarely used in HS. So do they mean you're a good citizen if you haven't been in trouble with the law? Anyway, benching those kids really fired them up when I brought them into the game later on. Only one girl said she was thinking of quitting the rest of the season. She had started every previous game and I had never taken her out, though she was mediocre at her position and can't hit, despite being "hyped" up by everyone that she's the best on the team and she's great at her position (and she'll ONLY play that position, despite botching 4/5 plays hit to her this season). I made her a captain to inspire her to come to practice but she only shows up to half of them. And now she can't handle a little bit of adversity...oh well. Another said if she knew she wasn't going to be starting she wouldn't have showed up to the game. A shame because she's my best fielder, but she did end up showing up to the next game despite no promises (and I started her).

For league games I'm starting my "good" kids and letting the bad ones come off the bench.