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Student-athletes Reclassifying is a good thing, right?


theguru

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I know many of you have very strong feelings about children that have chosen to reclassify and take advantage of the Supplemental School Year Program (SSYP) but feelings aside it is a good thing, right?  After all, what is in the best interests of individual children is what is most important, right?

A Beechwood parent of a reclassified child recently posted this on BGP:

As a dad of a reclassed kid at Beechwood in the 9th grade, I can speak on it.  I would never put other kids names on a list so that minors could be doxed.  That is crazy.  

My son was one of 4 total Beechwood freshman to reclass on the football team.  My son was a two-way starter, hurt in the summer workouts and chose not to play this season and heal up.  Another one of the reclassed freshmen was a younger age, was a starter but was injured early in the season and has been out.  A third reclass is a first year player.  The fourth reclass is a non-skill position starter.  That is all of the reclassed kids on the team, period.

As for my son, we chose Beechwood as an out-of-district family prior to Covid.  We toured/shadowed at CCH and looked at a couple of their schools as well.  We value education and felt that Beechwood was the best choice for us.  We felt our son would compete to play at any school he looked at but have taught him that education is the most important thing.  Then Covid happened, then remote learning happened, then not knowing your classmates happened in a small/tight community happened, then being quarantined 6 times happened, then academic/social struggling happened, then the opportunity to reclass happened.  I would be lying if I said athletics had nothing to do with it.  All of it had something to do with it.  We sat down with ALL coaches of the sports our son plays before making our decision.  We knew that our son was going to have to play freshman football again, even though he was plenty talented enough to play at a higher level.  So reclassed kids didn’t have the choice to move up in football.  We also did our due diligence with the fact that we made sure our son could opt to graduate early (his original graduation date) if he would like to prior to making the decision.  We spoke to the NCAA in addition to college coaches for multiple sports to talk about the extra year college athletes received because of Covid and the effects it had on the recruiting.  We felt the best decision for our son given the reclass option was to take advantage of it.  Our son would like to play college athletics and if it can help provide an education, we are all for it.  We aren’t ashamed about our decision or worried about what grownups/kids say about it, we have talked to our son extensively about ignorant comments.

We have, however, received support from many families from the Highlands and CCH communities, as those were the locations that were mentioned in this thread.  We also know many families that belong to the districts that BOE or Diocese chose against the extra year. These families were going to take advantage of the extra year if it were available.  The districts decided against. 

Lastly, I find it interesting that individual’s narratives are only including facts of taking advantage of this one extra year. I would propose that you look at the ages of the basketball McDonalds All-Americans upon graduation, the vast majority are 19.  Not saying our son is anywhere near that level of athlete.  The reality, we personally know individuals in almost every large NKY district that were “held back” prior to 9th grade.  This is very common in the sports world.  No one comments on these reclass kids.  Some of these kids are some of the best athletes in NKY.

Hopefully my thesis here can shed some light to this ridiculous subject so ignorantly commented on by so many.

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In the above case the parent and child have chosen to do what is best for the child.

Many parents and children have chosen to do what is in their best interests and reclassify.

That is a good thing, right?

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1 minute ago, Voice of Reason said:

In general, I say it is a good thing. With COVID and the strange school year last year, it was not a good experience for anyone. It was not a good learning environment for anyone. For those reasons I think the rule was a good move. 

We are in lockstep VoR.

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I was actually surprised more families, especially on the elementary levels, did not take advantage of the extra year.  I was expecting districts to get an avalanche of applications for that, but that didn't appear to happen, at least with the limited data I look over.

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Simply doing “what is in the best interest of YOUR kid” doesn’t make it right. Life is hard. Not a single kid had it any harder than anyone else last year. The poster from above chose to leave whatever district they were in, and come to Beechwood. It’s a tough school. Socializing is never easy when coming to a new school. That’s a given. Doesn’t mean you should get to do it again because you thought it was hard. You made that choice. The fact that college coaches and the NCAA were a factor in the decision tells me about all I need to know. 

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Have no dog in this fight. I do remember the days of eighth graders re-doing that year so that they would be "more mature" as freshmen.....and especially as a senior turning 19 after September 1. I believe the KHSAA banned that practice several years ago? I guess that no longer applies. As a retired teacher, coach, and official I may not agree but see the point. Recently saw a story on the news about a young man that had a medical condition end his junior season during the pre-season. He fortunately recovered and is having a good senior season. My question.....would the KHSAA grant him an additional year of eligibility if his family were to choose that avenue? Would his local BOE support that? Have thought about a scenario like this since this was put in place in 2020.

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6 minutes ago, theguru said:

For reference:

And nothing has changed with being 19 before/after 9/1, correct?

KHSAA hates legal action. I honestly see lawyers petitioning on behalf of students because of "extenuating circumstances". Just my gut feeling.

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21 minutes ago, theguru said:

For reference:

And nothing has changed with being 19 before/after 9/1, correct?

Actually, it is 8/1, not 9/1. The age restriction did not change. You can't turn 19 before 8/1 of your senior year. Anyone using this rule will need to fall under the age rules that have been in place before SSYP. 

Also, the middle school age rules did not change for 6th, 7th and 8th graders. The age cap for those grades was and still is can't turn 15 before 8/1 for 8th grade, 14 for 7th and 13 for 6th. 

Concerning the ability to be held back in middle school, if I recall the rule is that a student can be held back but they cannot play a second year of sports in the same grade. In other words, if an 8th grade student is held back, he can't play 8th grade sports again. He would have to sit out sports that year. Someone please correct this if I am wrong.

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7 minutes ago, Voice of Reason said:

Actually, it is 8/1, not 9/1. The age restriction did not change. You can't turn 19 before 8/1 of your senior year. Anyone using this rule will need to fall under the age rules that have been in place before SSYP. 

Also, the middle school age rules did not change for 6th, 7th and 8th graders. The age cap for those grades was and still is can't turn 15 before 8/1 for 8th grade, 14 for 7th and 13 for 6th. 

Concerning the ability to be held back in middle school, if I recall the rule is that a student can be held back but they cannot play a second year of sports in the same grade. In other words, if an 8th grade student is held back, he can't play 8th grade sports again. He would have to sit out sports that year. Someone please correct this if I am wrong.

Thanks. You are correct on 8/1. 

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Bad decision for the (powers that be) to allow this. I believe it's the only state in the country to do this.  Sometimes things are unfair, life happens, I would have told my son to move on with life and not spend an extra year in highschool/highschool sports, UNLESS there was some significant academic or other issue, that I would have held them back for regardless of this new rule. 

I'm curious if any parents who chose to have their child repeat, would have made the same decision had KY not adopted this rule? Because that option was always available, you just had to deal with the impact on high school eligability.

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13 minutes ago, Voice of Reason said:

In other words, if an 8th grade student is held back, he can't play 8th grade sports again.

And according to the post that Guru quoted, this is happening all over the region? I don’t buy it. I absolutely haven’t seen it. I know plenty of kids who were held back in kindergarten or first grade because of maturity or development concerns, sure. I don’t know of a single kid within 4 years in either direction of my sons who has intentionally stayed back. And they’re supposedly some of the best athletes in northern Kentucky? Well who are they, and which year of middle school did they give up?

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