After the arrival of Athletic Director Mykeal Terry, a new tutoring system was implemented to ensure the academic success of BPHS student-athletes. The phrase “student-athlete” is one that administration does not take lightly, meaning extra effort and time for students to maintain their grades is key. With the RISE UP program, rules for athletes to play in games are as follows:
- For every C and D an athlete has, they are required to attend 30 minutes of tutoring.
- For every F, athletes are required to attend an hour of tutoring.
- All hours add up at the end of each week. This means if tutoring hours were not completed, athletes are at risk of not being able to participate in games.
- Tutoring could be completed any day of the school week, before school, after school, or during HOWL.
While this new system is still taking time for most parties to get used to, many haven’t stopped from sharing their personal feelings on the topic. Various opinions from administrators, coaches, and the athletes themselves have been shared on the effectiveness of academic tutoring. While some thoughts resulted to be more in a positive light, others may have had their own critiques of the new system.
BPHS Cheer Team member Myriam Magana is a student-athlete that believes academic tutoring is beneficial for those that participate. She mentions an important factor many athletes may lose sight of when it comes to academics:
time. When asked about her thoughts on tutoring, she shares, “I feel like the tutoring does help because it gives athletes chance to catch up on their work since they’re busy at practice.” It also shows that this controlled workspace will better the concentration of some students, something that Myriam also mentions. She adds, “…obviously, we can’t be on our phones and have to do our work,” which will likely increase a student’s chances of maintaining better grades in the long run.
Athletic Director Mykeal Terry also voiced in on why exactly participation in tutoring is so important for our student-athletes. Academic grades have been moving forward in a progressively positive light, following with personal growth amongst our athletes as whole. “Their grades have gone up about 30%… the overall average for grades was at 2.6 and now we’re looking at a 2.9 for most of our athletes,” mentions Terry. Positive trends have been noticed from coaches and administrators of on the field performance of athletes, which could be in response to the RISE UP program’s requirements.
He says, “When it comes to the actual physical form of that, we’ve had less injuries… as well as we saw a 300% increase in our wins.” A culture shift in the way academics are being handled in regards to student-athletes seems to be bettering the overall majority of students.
Despite the various opinions from different voices around our campus, tutoring has shown to have an overall positive effect on students that need it. Not only does it benefit our students inside of the classroom, but it also benefits our athletes outside of the classroom. As the school year progresses, this new tutoring system will have time to prosper, seeing if all students that participate will be impacted from its possible benefits.
