Allow Youth Programs to run 7th Grade Sports

Currently, many schools are facing financial challenges and are not adequately staffed to handle middle school sports programs.  Many of the larger schools have elected to allow existing Youth Programs to continue to coach and mentor the athletes until the 8th grade.  The benefit to the school is that it is able to save money and resources.  The benefit to the student athlete is that they keep the synergies from their youth programs and when they enter the 8th grade the schools are better able to focus on the 8th grade sports programs as their resources are not spread so thin.  It is a great opportunity for the community to join in and help the schools and gives the student athletes a better situation when they enter the school program.  

The school has to handle all middle school sports in the early morning before school, and many times it is a high school coach pulling double duty, so obviously the proper time and attention to the development of the athletes is not available.  In addition these same coaches are not able to spend the proper amount of time with the High School athletes in preparation, because that time that could be used for one on one instruction or game film review is being used to coach 7th and 8th graders in the morning.  Ideally, we are asking the School Board to create an 8th grade program, and use the facilities at the high school, or develop the facilities that have already been planned for at the behind the middle school.  This would allow the athletes in middle school to practice after school like the high school, ease the burden on parents to get athletes to school before 7am, and allow the high school coaches to focus on development of the athletes with the goal of getting more kids college scholarships.  Athletics are great for many different reasons, but as a former college athlete, they provided my college education.