An essential characteristic of school-sponsored sports programs is that student-athletes earn the privilege of participation on their school teams by maintaining adequate academic progress in their schools’ classrooms.

Some schools require students to meet or exceed a certain grade point average, but the minimum standard for MHSAA member schools is that students have passed during the previous term and are passing in the current term at least 66 percent of the full credit load potential for a full-time student.

For the majority of students, this is a fair standard that provides some grace if a particularly difficult assignment or test trips them up, or brief sickness slows them down.  It allows academically challenged students to meet the standard, and it doesn’t discourage academically gifted students from challenging themselves with advanced placement and even college level courses.

The particular issue under review this year is how frequently the academic checks must occur.  The minimum frequency is presently every ten weeks in semester systems and every seven weeks in trimester systems, which is already more rigorous than the minimum requirement of surrounding state high school associations.

The leading proposals for change in the minimum standard, if there is to be any change at all, are checks of every six weeks or every three weeks.  That would be the minimum requirement, regardless of academic calendar.

Still, many schools in Michigan check more frequently, even weekly.  However, larger schools/districts find this more difficult to accomplish than smaller schools, although electronics are making this an easier task everywhere.

The current effort is to discover if there is need for more frequency and, if so, what will be an effective regulator and motivator for students of all kinds without becoming a burden in schools of any size and setting.