Athletic/Activities Eligibility Explained
CHSAA
The Colorado High School Activities Association requires schools to track and enforce eligibility for participation in high school athletics and other activities in two ways. The first way applies to high school students ONLY. In order for students to be eligible to participate they have to have successfully completed 2.5 credits (5 classes), the previous semester. If they did not pass at least five classes they are permitted to practice with the team BUT they CANNOT participate in competitions with other schools until after the eligibility regain date, which is set by CHSAA. The second way applies to both the middle school and the high school. Schools must choose to implement either weekly or bi-weekly eligibility. Our district has chosen to do weekly eligibility. This means that each time a student is failing a class, after the warning week for the grading period, he/she will be ineligible for one week.
What exactly is a warning week?
Perhaps the best way to explain what a warning week is is to first explain what it isn’t. A warning week is not a “get out of jail free card” that students can save in their back pocket for when they are failing a class one week and they don’t wish to be ineligible to play in that week’s games. A warning week cannot be saved for later use. The purpose of the warning week is to give students warning the first time within a grading period that their grade falls below a 60% in one or more classes. Warning weeks are typically utilized early in a grading period when there aren’t as many grades in the gradebook and one failing grade or missing assignment can have a larger impact on a students overall grade. Dolores High School has two grading periods, the fall semester and the spring semester. Dolores Middle School has four grading periods, quarters 1-4. High school eligibility is based on semester grades. Middle school eligibility is based on quarter grades. If a class has fewer than 3 grades in the gradebook for the current grading period it is not included in the eligibility determination.
How Does it All Work?
Each Thursday afternoon the athletic department pulls a grade report for all of the students that are participating in a sport or other activity for the current season. We are currently between the fall and winter sports seasons, but activities such as Cheerleading, Knowledge Bowl and Debate span across multiple seasons so eligibility continues to run. Eligibility is pulled on Thursdays for the following week. This gives coaches, players, and parents adequate time to prepare for the week ahead rather than having the eligibility go into immediate effect the day it is pulled. If a student is failing one or more classes when eligibility is pulled they will not be eligible for participation in competition (games, wrestling matches, knowledge bowl meets, etc.) the following Monday – Saturday.
Example:
Student A plays basketball and is failing his science class on Thursday, November 30th, when eligibility is pulled. The team is playing in a tournament over the weekend and has games scheduled for November 30th, December 1st, and December 2nd. Student A is eligible to participate in all three tournament games. Beginning Monday, December 4th, Student A is ineligible and will be ineligible all week, from Monday, December 4th – Saturday, December 9th. Eligibility will be pulled again on Thursday, December 7th. If Student A is passing all classes he will be eligible to play games again beginning on December 11th. He will NOT be eligible to play in any games scheduled for December 7th, 8th or 9th. His eligibility is regained on December 11th and he will be permitted to participate in games from Monday, December 11th – Saturday, December 16th.
Sincerely,
Dolores MS/HS Administration