{"id":3445,"date":"2021-05-07T00:13:04","date_gmt":"2021-05-07T00:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/?p=3445"},"modified":"2024-10-15T22:01:49","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T22:01:49","slug":"if-students-are-on-field-they-can-be-back-in-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/2021\/05\/07\/if-students-are-on-field-they-can-be-back-in-class\/","title":{"rendered":"If Students Are on Field They Can Be Back in Class"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This year\u2019s March Madness featured an updated version of a longstanding NCAA television commercial<\/a> that conveyed a forgotten truth to sports enthusiasts: \u201cThere are over 400,000 NCAA student-athletes, and almost all of us will be going pro in something other than sports.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The commercial underscores an important fact: only about two percent of college athletes make it to the professional level. Despite this reality, up to 75 percent<\/a> of college athletes believe they are within that two percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A similar misperception prevails at the middle and high school level. Even the youngest of youth sports \u2014 parents and players are driven by a false promise of competing at the collegiate level. Depending on the sport, only three to nine percent of all high school athletes will compete in NCAA<\/a> Division I, II, or III college sports \u2014 and many college athletes do not receive athletic scholarships (Division III even prohibits them). And only one to three percent of high school athletes make it Division I.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a former college athlete, state championship winning high school coach, and lifelong sports fan, I recognize the tremendous role athletics can play in one\u2019s life. Positive character development and unforgettable memories can be made. But the NCAA\u2019s commercial provides a needed reality check \u2014 the majority of today\u2019s students will go pro in something other than sports. In essence, the balance of life and one\u2019s livelihood will be dependent on the student<\/em> part of the popular phrase, student-athlete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washington State permits high school athletics while deeming classroom learning unsafe for the same students and district employees.<\/p>Keri D. Ingraham<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Spanning more than a year, teacher unions had largely refused to fully reopen schools for in-person learning, asserting it wasn\u2019t safe for their members. The refusal comes despite the fact that private schools reopened and have remained open since last August and September, despite public schools\u2019 receiving a series of massive additional federal funding, despite the overwhelming medical evidence that schools can operate safely when fully open, and despite vaccination privileges for teachers above other working groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Mid-March, at the one-year mark of school closures, Governor Inslee gave up on teacher unions sending teachers back to work. He issued an executive order requiring public schools to offer K-12 students at least 30 percent of pre-pandemic in-person instruction hours by April 19. The extremely low bar set by Inslee was intended to avoid an all-out war with union leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

High school athletics, on the other hand, received very different treatment. On January 5, Inslee and the Washington State Department of Health released guidelines giving the green light for the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association to resume sports in all nine athletic districts within the state. The guidelines explicitly disconnected<\/a> in-person academics and athletics: \u201cIt is not mandated that schools return to in-person learning before taking part in extracurricular activities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While teacher unions have deemed in-person classroom instruction extremely unsafe, particularly for employees and middle and high school students, athletic teams for these same students \u2014 including even contact sports \u2014 have returned to play under their watchful eye without a second thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evidently, coaches, many of whom are classroom teachers, and all of which are district employees<\/a>, cannot be expected to face the risks of teaching academics in a socially distanced, controlled classroom environment, equipped with personal protective equipment, and sanitized surfaces. Yet these same district employees can huddle up with the same students in close proximity, share athletic balls and equipment without sanitization between touches, with student-athletes breathing heavily on them and their fellow students (in some cases without face masks depending on the sport and whether played inside or out). Not only that, but participation includes traveling to other schools for competitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The misplaced priorities and illogical policies are alarming. It\u2019s time for education leaders, including teacher unions, to stop blocking the student <\/em>part of student-athlete. It\u2019s long overdue for all schools statewide to once again serve and support students with full-time, in-person learning options. That should be quickly followed by schools implementing safe avenues for reinstating athletics, arts, and social activities, which are all of great importance to our students, their families, and our communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A return to full-time in-person classroom learning has been deemed unsafe for middle and high school students by teacher unions throughout Washington State while contact sports, for these same students and their coaches, have resumed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":441,"featured_media":3448,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":2,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[495,501,506,498,497,505,507,504,496,500,508,83,503,502,385,499],"coauthors":[1073],"class_list":["post-3445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-quote","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-unions","tag-athletics","tag-closed-classrooms","tag-college-athletics","tag-high-school-athletics","tag-high-school-sports","tag-ncaa","tag-pro-sports","tag-return-to-athletics","tag-sports","tag-student-safety","tag-student-athlete","tag-teacher-unions","tag-unsafe-classrooms","tag-unsafe-schools","tag-washington-state","tag-youth-sports","post_format-post-format-quote"],"acf":[],"author_names":["Keri D. Ingraham"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/441"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3445"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3445"}],"wp:action-assign-author":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post\/3445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}