IT'S an issue that evokes some of the most passionate arguments the Board of Education has ever heard. To keep or scrap the 2.0 standard for participation in extracurricular school activities -- that is the question. 2.0 arguments have
merits on both sidesWhatever the BOE decides to do about it Thursday night in a meeting at the Queen Liliuokalani Building will impact heavily upon the lives of student-athletes from Ka'u to Kauai.
There's no getting away from the fact that football turnout this season is alarmingly low for some schools. Castle is down to 30 bodies, but if you take away probationary players the Knights have only 26.
Castle's new head coach, Nelson Maeda, said the 2.0 rule seems to be a major factor in the turnout.
Hawaii is not the only state wrestling with the issue of minimum standards for participation in athletics and other activities. Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Wyoming and the District of Columbia also enforce standards of some sort, but questions persist.
The arguments to lower or do away with the 2.0 rule sometimes come from young people who have already cleared Hawaii's secondary school system.
FORMER Farrington High School all-state running back Josh White has earned himself a football scholarship at Cal-Berkeley after buckling down for five straight quarters at a junior college to earn his associates degree. But White told me last month that if it hadn't been for football, he might never have graduated high school.
White admitted skipping classes on many occasions during his senior year, and only the lure of athletic participation kept him in the running for a productive life.
He couldn't qualify on the SAT and therefore could not accept the scholarship Brigham Young University offered him, but he said that the foundation for his comeback had been laid by the disciplines instilled by football.
The turnaround in White's life is among the more dramatic examples of how athletics can keep a straying kid tethered to hope.
But White was in school while the 2.0 was in place and he obviously had to meet that standard in order to have his superb senior season.
The arguments to keep the 2.0 in place, or even raise it, were delivered to a BOE subcommittee a few weeks ago with hand-wringing and looks of stunned disbelief.
How can a state whose education system is rated so far behind the rest of the nation even consider lowering academic standards for outside activities?
Why should we eliminate one of the most compelling carrots for academic effort?
THE battle cries I've heard from throughout the state this decade are either, "Don't hurt these kids who have nothing else to hang on to" or "Don't insult these kids by telling them they're hopelessly incompetent."
I am not going to dig in my heels on this one because I've been genuinely touched by the pleas from both sides. Proponents and opponents of the 2.0 are highly quotable and their points for persuasion could fill a book.
What the BOE decides won't necessarily be the answer. God knows, they're not experts on this or a lot of other subjects, and they require much more input than time allows.
But I hope that parents, coaches and athletic administrators can find a way to improve the lot of Hawaii's public school student-athletes with or without enforceable standards after this week.
More creative teaching in the classroom -- where some kids are known to doze off due to undernourishment -- may not be the whole answer. Creative caring in the study halls, locker rooms and the home -- well, I'm inclined to believe that might do it.