Would love to get some feed back on this. I personally think High Schools are missing big opportunity for there Students. Would like honest thoughts please:
To Staff,
First off, huge thanks to Ms.---( Office help part time), Ms., Mr and Mrs ---- and James --- and Ms. Lea for the warm reception for my daughter, as she committed to ----- yesterday. A special thank you to Ms.---- for arranging at the last minute an opportunity to support one of her BSU student athletes. Another special thanks to Hosea who wanted to share this moment but at the last minute he thought she would be in the gym. Most of you weren't aware of what was going on yesterday. The --- family is truly grateful.
Unfortunately, there are certain points I would like to bring to your attention regarding National Signing Day that I hope the school will consider to make the experience better in the future for all students, the school and the community.
National signing day is a special day for student athletes where they can be recognized for their accomplishments outside the classroom and celebrate with their friends, teachers ( Teacher/ Counselor who sent recommendation letters) and school community. The school has a great opportunity to leverage a signing day event. It's an effective way to showcase the well-rounded student body, build school spirit/community culture, potentially generate local media attention and most importantly, inspire other students to work hard to achieve their aspirations. The event is such a low effort event, given all the potential rewards. Please take this in consideration for the next generation of student athletes in the near future.
In my daughters case, she and I were told that student athletes who don't participate in school sports could not participate in a signing day hosted by the Athletic Department. Mr ---, thank you for taking my call and speaking with me about this, but I believe the school missed the mark on an opportunity. I called several athletic directors and unanimously they shared that their schools celebrate all athletes with a signing day event, on social media and through school spirit, regardless of sport, division, club vs. school sports, etc. These kids are key members of the school community, and they have shown determination as they juggled the demands of their sport with their school work. The reason to celebrate them isn't because they participated in school sports, its to celebrate that they are members of the High school community.
Yesterday, there were four female athlete commits Cindy, Jordan and Kim. I spoke with the parents of 2 others and those parents shared that the girls wanted to have this experience together and celebrate one another. Instead there was one athlete in the gym, my daughter scrambled to pull something together on her own with the help of Ms. -----, and the remaining two athletes were told they would have to wait and do their signing day at some other date. Breaking this up took away all momentum from the event. Most of the people that came out to support only knew about the event through word-of-mouth -- I am told there was no mention of this in announcements. The school lost any benefit from this approach. I know 3 of 4 athletes were disappointed by this approach as well.
Again, thank you to all who came to support my daughter in this exciting moment and congratulations to Cindy, Kim and Jordan for their accomplishments as well.
Warmest Regards,
The Family
The Athletic Directors response :
I just spoke with the school in our area that has the most commits, High School Name, and they had NOTHING, NOTHING yesterday for their signees and will instead hold a ceremony in February. In addition, they have, in the past, done exactly as we did yesterday and hold a signing for an individual athlete. They will also, like us, hold individual ceremonies throughout the year. I have had several conversations with AD's and there are some who honor kids who opt not to participate with their athletic program and some who do. I asked our coaches at ------- their opinion and overwhelmingly they did not think our athletic program should honor them because they simply are not part of our athletic program. I am glad that our school honored your daughter and I think it was done at the right setting in a small private classroom.
My response back:
Mr AD ( Athletic Director),
Thank you for your response and I sincerely appreciate you engaging in a dialog about this topic. I hope our discussion leads to the best experience for future athletes at High School.
I am aware that many schools do different things on different dates for signing day. Since there are several signing days throughout the year for various sports, I know several schools that wait until the end of the year so they can celebrate with everyone at once. Those schools are leveraging the energy from all the athletes for a community building event at their school. The person I see getting the most benefit is the young underclassman that is working diligently at their sport who aspires to play at top school - whether that’s a top 10 ranked power 5 D1 school or a top academic D3 or the kid that just wants to play for their college. These seniors act as role models to the younger kids and leveraging that to better the school community should be the purpose of an event like this.
While I am sure you are right that some schools choose to do individual ceremonies, judging from my Facebook feed over the past 48 hours, I suspect more often schools are doing group ceremonies. It is certainly logistically simpler and creates buzz. Most importantly, I suspect most kids want to be together and celebrate with each other.
As it relates to kids that don’t play sports for the school, your closing comment in your email makes your position very clear. As per our last conversation you rather have student athletes you don't play a school sport to celebrate in a more private event. That's a great idea to rally school spirit to be more exclusive. I am disappointed by that and sincerely hope that you and the coaches reconsider. There is benefit to the student body to celebrate these kids which I have already outlined. My DD was fortunate that she had a forum to celebrate but what happens to the student who doesn’t? Their contribution to the school community is considered less than?
And I leave you with this - In the current environment, when so much in the world is about inclusion, what does the athletic department gain by not being inclusive?
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Best regards,
