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Show In Our Opinion r Should the schools hire teachers or team coaches? What should the role of extracurricular activities be in the secondary school system? This question was the central idea of an hour-long discussion discus-sion at the last Davis County Board of Education meeting. - The specific extracurricular activity in question was swimming, swimm-ing, but the problems and concerns brought up at the meeting by parents, school officials and board members carry over into all secondary school sports and other extracurricular activities. Some of the information presented at the meeting should be ; seriously studied by parents, students and education leaders. ; Did you know that a high school could sponsor 17 sports us- ; ing possibly 35 coaches? Utah High School Activities Association rules say that the head coach for any school-sponsored sport must be a certified . : teacher. This means that in selecting teachers to staff academic . ' classes, the administration must carefully consider the person's j ; ability to coach. Tamara Lowe, Clearfield High principal, said, "I am looking for six academic teachers including a math, ! ; English and Spanish teacher. I can't look for one swimming '. t coach when my primary responsibility is academics A parent commented, "We need to get the best teachers to teach and the best coaches to coach. ' ' f Board member Ray Briscoe put this idea in different words, t I "The ideal is to look for the scholar-athlete and the scholar-! scholar-! athlete-coach." Can this happen in the public school system? ! Some parents felt more emphasis should be placed on the ; "healthy lifestyles" or "fitness for life' sports like swimm- ' ing. golf and tennis and less on the more exclusive, money- making, traditional sports of basketball and football. ; Briscoe suggested that athletics should be reduced by 50 percent in the school system. He favors moving many sports to ; a community or a school-sponsored club status. ; Sports is just part of a secondary school's extracurricular program. Schools also offer extracurricular opportunities in speech, drama, music, dance, cheerleading, drill and possibly ; other areas. How many certified teachers are needed to staff these specialized classes? Who is left in the school to teach the "basic" subjects? The point of this editorial is not that extracurricular ac-j ac-j tivities should be removed from the secondary school program, j No one at last week's board meeting wanted to see this happen. . AU recognized the contribution activities make to school unity '. and spirit and to the building of self-esteem, discipline and '. motivation in the students. j Davis County high schools have large enrollments. There ' needs to be a broad base of activities to involve as many I students as possible in something outside the academic realm. I The question is how extracurricular activities can be manag- I ed so that a student has a strong academic education plus the ; benefits of a solid activity program. I Superintendent of schools, Dr. Richard Kendell, asked ; "Must the school be responsible for sponsoring every activi- ; Another question might be, "What activities are most ap- ; propriately sponsored by schools and how can this determination determina-tion be made? ' ; The administration and board of education of the Davis ; School District indicated this problem is not unique to the ; county. It is a state and national concern. District officials en- ; courage parents to contribute constructive ideas and sugges- ; tions to their local school administrators. Awareness of the ; problem is the first step toward improving the situation. |