After three years of middle school athletes being required to stay home, they’re now allowed to travel.
A 6-1 vote at Tuesday’s Juneau School District meeting ended the travel ban imposed on middle school athletics, effective immediately. School District Superintendent Mark Miller said the board members were reflecting what they’ve heard from the public with this decision.
“I think every board member had their own reasons,” Miller said. “One of the reasons many of them had was they got an earful when they were running for office the past three years about it, from members of the community who feel very strongly that it should never have been implemented in the first place.”
The idea of fairness has been at the center of this issue. Back in September 2013, when the board approved the ban, the issue stemmed from the fact that Floyd Dryden Middle School teams were traveling and Dzanktik’i Heeni Middle School teams were not. The ban went into effect prior to the 2014 school year, not allowing teams to travel or even to fundraise for travel.
The idea that swayed the members of the board this year was also about equity. Academic middle school organizations have still been allowed to travel in recent years while athletic teams have had to stay at home. Now, all will be able to travel. Teams had always had to fund their own travel independent of the school, and will now once again raise money on their own.
Board of Education President Brian Holst said he doesn’t expect teams to travel until next season, and that the board still has some work to do.
“It’s left to the superintendent to work out the administrative regulations to implement the policy,” Holst said. “They have work to do that they’ll start now and I imagine that they’ll be able to arrive at guidelines that they’ll share with the board but it’s really left up to the super to decide not if it’s allowed, but given that it is allowed, how middle school athletic travel happens.”
Miller said he expects to work through the end of the school year and throughout the summer working out the details of how travel will work. He said they’ll work together to figure out how to “avoid the pitfalls in the issues” when the ban was put in place.
The school board that approved the ban was worried about both the financial burden on families and the academic challenges that athletic travel posed. Families were forced to pay for travel, teams were forced to raise funds and students and teachers both missed class. Those are still concerns, as the sole dissenting voter and Vice President Andi Story asserted during the meeting.
Though the details have yet to be worked out, the travel schedule will likely return to the one that was in place prior to the ban, Holst said.
“When you’re in middle school, not every team would travel every year historically,” Holst said. “Some teams would travel each year, other teams would travel maybe every other year, and there’s always been an effort to minimize class absence.”
Advocates of athletic travel range from middle school students to local government figures. City and Borough of Juneau Assembly member Debbie White has been outspoken about the ban since its genesis, and was “so happy” to hear the news Tuesday.
“This is absolutely essential for those young people with athletic ability and inclination to pursue a higher level in their sports careers,” White said. “It opens a lot of opportunities.”
Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at alex.mccarthy@juneauempire.com or 523-2271.
