CMS school board waives 2.0 GPA requirement to play sports in the first semester
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg School Board voted 7-1 late Tuesday night to suspend an academic requirement for students in the district to play sports and participate in other extracurricular activities.
The board lifted the 2.0 GPA rule for the first semester of the 2021-22 school year, and school Supt. Earnest Winston said the district was considering making a similar request of the board for the second semester.
“If we deem it appropriate,” Winston said, “we’ll bring another recommendation to the board.”
The rule change — which still requires a student to meet local promotion standards — means that players in fall sports like football and winter sports like basketball will not be required to have a 2.0 GPA from the previous semester of high school. But winter-sports athletes could be required to meet the grade requirement for the second semester unless the board takes further action. Winter sports cross over into the second semester.
Board member Rhonda Cheek said she brought this issue of waiving the fall requirement to Winston’s attention in June, shortly after an unusual school year concluded.
In the previous school year, students mostly took classes online and had little in-person instruction. A large number of CMS students also did not have access to the internet, and some coaches told The Observer that their student-athletes had to become caregivers for younger siblings when schools closed.
Coaches told The Observer on Tuesday, ahead of the vote, that sports and other extracurricular programs help keep students engaged and coming to school, and said they were worried many student-athletes would be affected if the 2.0 rule returned this fall.
It had been suspended during the previous school year.
Cheek echoed some of those thoughts.
“The importance of that music program, the importance of ROTC, robotics, Odyssey of the Mind, soccer, track, whatever the extracurricular activity that speaks to the heart of a child,” Cheek said, while urging other board members to vote in favor of suspending the rule, “the heart of a student is something we need to honor and respect.”
Cheek said it was important to have the vote Tuesday because sports and other extracurricular activities will begin in a few weeks, well ahead of the official start of school Aug. 25.
“We’ve made it really tough for those kids to be academically successful,” Cheek said, “and we need to pour all of our energy into making them academically successful this fall so they can meet requirements for the spring.”
Sean Strain was the only board member to vote against suspending the GPA requirement.
Strain argued that students knew the 2.0 rule was scheduled to return for the upcoming school year.
“I agree (extracurricular activities) are fundamental to the development of our youth,” Strain said. “They do absolutely enhance the curricular activity. But I can’t support this because curricular is the core ... Our students knew this was the expectation last semester and they were able to perform how they were able to perform. Now we’re looking at the next semester and saying, ‘Well, it was a difficult situation so we’re going to lower the bar.’ ”
CMS has long required the 2.0 rule for sports and other extracurricular activities. The N.C. High School Athletic Association requires athletes to pass a set number of classes, depending on the type of schedule they take.
“One could certainly argue,” Strain said, “that perhaps what needs to happen if a youth is not able to meet the standard, to meet the expectation in order to perform in the extracurricular activities, they need to focus on the curricular activities and not participate in the extracurricular activities.
“I’m glad we can provide all of the enrichment through extracurricular activities. But I can’t support lowering the standards ... They are extracurricular and they are enriching but we have standards and they knew they had to meet those standards.”
Earlier Tuesday, West Charlotte High football coach Sam Greiner said he was hoping the board would take action and suspend the 2.0 rule.
Greiner said he was worried about large numbers of players being forced to sit out if the 2.0 rule returned. Coaches said some players struggled to get internet access regularly to attend classes during the previous school year, and some, Greiner said, had new family responsibilities created when schools closed.
“Inner-city schools, especially, struggle in a COVID time,” Greiner said. “A lot of times, their kids have to watch younger siblings or work and still try to get school accomplished. They missed a lot of (in-person) school last year. They need support in their lives and we can encourage them, while playing, to get their academics better. So CMS lifting that rule would be huge.”
East Mecklenburg athletic director Jason Fowler said the 2.0 rule would’ve cost his school as much as 20% of its football and basketball athletes.
“Talking to some of the ADs, they were saying that Garinger, Harding and West Charlotte would have a hard time fielding a football team,” Fowler said.
Greiner said it would have been “devastating” to his team if the rule had stood, but thought the Lions would have had a varsity club.
“CMS lifting that rule is huge,” Greiner said. “I could field a team (with the 2.0) but it would have holes. I don’t get the sense that mine or some other schools might not field teams, but there possibly wouldn’t be JV teams, and that hurts everybody.”
Fowler said lifting the rule would be a great help after an unusual 2020-21 school year.
“We just need to get back to some sense of normalcy,” he said, “and see if we can get kids back in the building on some of sort of routine, where they can be tracked by coaches. They’ve already missed enough. They don’t need to miss anything else.”
This story was originally published July 13, 2021 at 3:03 PM.
