The recent move to change how high school activities are scheduled is a great move by the school district.
While I realize some may bemoan the fact that the Wolves won’t play as often as they have in the past, this is better for both the teachers and students involved in student activities.
For the teachers, it gives them more opportunity to help students struggling in their classes and better opportunity to teach their classes. While technology does give students and teachers more opportunities to connect and discuss lessons, one-on-one attention delivered in person is the most effective means of helping students. Teachers gone throughout the week, traveling with their teams across the Cowboy State for competition, are forced to leave lesson plans for substitute teachers to carry out. While I’m not attacking the effectiveness of a sub, the original teacher is much better prepared to carry out those lesson plans because they’re more familiar with the subject matter being taught. At worst, classes helmed by a substitute can devolve into a class study period as well, which essentially cancels the class while the teacher is out and makes that substitute little more than a glorified baby sitter. Students will benefit from having more time with their teachers as a result of this new scheduling focus.
Students, especially those involved in athletics, will benefit as well from the change. Students won’t be forced to travel as much during the week, which means they’ll have more classroom time. It gives them more time to focus on academics, as well as work on improving grades that might be slipping.
With more of a focus on Friday and Saturday competition, students won’t be as fatigued from mid-week competition and travel. As with the oft-ridiculed Wednesday night basketball games, travel doesn’t only keep kids out of the classroom, but long trips to other 3A and 4A schools can be exhausting as well. A Tuesday or Wednesday night competition doesn’t sound bad until one factors in the travel times and weather encountered during those trips. A team may leave Wednesday morning to compete against Star Valley or Cody, but an evening game assures students will have to stay the night. Returning from competition takes time as well and if students are able to return the following day at about 11 a.m. or noon, they’re tired from the trip they just returned from. Couple that with practice for the more frequent weekend competition and the school has a group of tired, distracted teenagers who might not be able to perform as well in the classroom that week as a result of their mid-week contest.
Ultimately, education is the main reason students attend GRHS. The school doesn’t exist because of football or any other activity and as such, those activities should not have such a tight hold over either the students or teachers. Activities, despite the amount of work involved, are meant to be fun diversions from regular school life. Scheduling impacting students and teachers midway through the school week begins to veer outside the definition of “extra curricular” and can impact more than just a team and its coach.
The effort made by the district athletics director Tony Beardsley regarding activities scheduling will have a positive impact on GRHS as a whole.
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