"Official" HS Team Sanction...an issue?

Dormant threads from the high school sections are preserved here.
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What sort of recognition should you need to have to be an HSQB team at a competition (ignore homeschools for poll question)?

Being an official HS club/organization
12
30%
Having administrators officially approve delegation
7
18%
Being in high school or similar secondary education at same school
20
50%
Being in high school or similar secondary education but not necessarily at same school
1
3%
 
Total votes: 40

pakman044
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"Official" HS Team Sanction...an issue?

Post by pakman044 »

This thread is now in AHAN, but I thought it would be more pertinent to post this idea is Misc HSQB:
jrbarry wrote:"and we have since talked to tournament officials there {Brookwood} and they said there was no dress-code."

I am the Brookwood Tournament Director and no one from MCHS talked to me.

Ms. Sadler at Hardee High is someone I have known for years and I put great stock in what her judgments are concerning quiz bowl. She has brought teams to the BISB for many years and has never complained about any person or team's behavior.

I was not privy to seeing any inappropriate dress at this year's BISB. And appropriate dress is expected at all our tournaments at Brookwood. That means dress that would pass OUR dress code. 2 readers DID mention to me that one team had a captain that was dressed maybe too provocatively. They didn't press it, so I didn't research it on that day.

I will say that I do not intend to allow any teams in our tournakment in the fuiture that are not officially sanctioned teams. I feel like I was hoodwinked by someone or some folks in Martin County, FL as, while I was super busy with tournament prep the week of the BISB, I received several communications from more than one MC person regarding dropping out, refubnding money, and adding a team to take MCHS's place. Had I thought the situation through rationally, I would NOT have allowed the team that did participate in the BISB representing Martin County to play this year.

I am unhappy about the situation.
This brings up an interesting point: what *are* the standards for qualifying as a high school team? I've seen a decent number of registration forms, and none of them have required proof of school sanction, so theoretically there is nothing stopping anyone except verification from the school admins (and when I was back in high school, although we were "officially" a club, they only knew whether went somewhere as far as where the check was cut to).

The second question: just what is "school sanction"? Sanction as a school club? It is fairly simple to be a school club and theoretically if two clubs overlapped, they could both claim to be "official" from the same school. Or is sanction when the administration signs off on a specific team going to a specific competition, making it more like an athletic type deal (which also brings the role of how much role an administration should have in team selection)?

Finally, the third question to ask is, if a school sanction is unnecessary, what sort of "common relationship" should a team have to be classified as a team? At a lot of competitions in college (although I should note looser competitions), the only "common relationship" is that the four people be living humans (and some don't even require that as long as they pay their registration fees!). However, since high school implies eligiblity and actually being in secondary education, this is an interesting question.

I'm just throwing all of this out; I personally haven't thought out any answers yet. I'm sure this might just start some interesting commentary...

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Post by mujason »

Well, it depends on the tournament.

For regular-season tournaments, I would say that the students should all be attending the same high school.

For tournaments regulated by governing bodies (such as PACE, NAQT, state championships regulated by a governing body such as a state athletic or academic association), the team should have official permission from the school administration.

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Post by Captain Sinico »

This question is, for most intents and purposes, unanswerable. Even the level of organizational structure available, much less required, is too variable across high schools (even excluding home "schools") for any answer to cary any kind of inherent validity. The only persons who can answer this are tournament hosts, and their registration requirements (given that any exist in the first place,) should vary by host and event and should be based on legal principles beyond their (i.e. your) comprehension. That is to say any staid rules for school activities ought come from "on high" (again, where "high" is exactly will vary widely across schools) and are, therefore, unquestionable and violable only at the peril of the host. Everything beyond such imperatives should be (and, generally, is) mutable outside of a core set of rules inherent to the definition of quizbowl (e.g. "your team in comprised of, at most, [whatever number] players;" "your players must be in high school;" etc.)

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Post by mujason »

Whoa. I actually agree with Hairboy.

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Post by Dan Greenstein »

Obviously different tournaments are going to have varying levels of formality in regards to this issue.

At one extreme are the official state tournaments who would require the school administration sanction the teams and all kinds of bureaucratic measures.

At the other extreme are tournaments that follow the college invitational model: that is, the only requirements are (1) teams contain students all from the same high school and (2) someone pays the entrance fee.
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Post by STPickrell »

Haven't there been some homeschool associations that have fielded teams?

I also remember at the R-MC tournament back in 1997, Parry McCluer sent two teams (combined record 0-14 IIRC). Included on that team were a few homeschool kids. At the time I only asked if the kids would have gone to McCluer if they went to public schools.

Looking back I'd have tried to get the homeschooled kids on one team and the McCluer kids on the other if at all possible.
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Post by MCDoug »

I emailed NAQT about it, they said an "unofficial" team is fine as long as they are all from the same school.
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Post by mrblinux »

What exactly is the IIRC? Is it a unique competition to Virginia?
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Post by Dan Greenstein »

IIRC = if I remember correctly
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Post by mrblinux »

How strange.. and here I was thinking it was something remotely like the VHSL.
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Post by NoahMinkCHS »

StPickrell wrote:Haven't there been some homeschool associations that have fielded teams?[...]At the time I only asked if the kids would have gone to McCluer if they went to public schools.
Looking back I'd have tried to get the homeschooled kids on one team and the McCluer kids on the other if at all possible.
Never played a homeschooled quiz bowl team, but I have seen homeschool Mock Trial teams that were pretty good. IMHO, if an associatizon gets together to do it, it's probably OK (although I'm not sure about how fair that is--you don't know how their curriculum or whatever is structured. I know homeschools always did well in the Geography Bee because they could spend a lot of time on that, more than we could in a public or even an accredited private school.) But seems that letting homeschoolers compete for the school they would go to just isn't right. I know some homeschoolers have sued to be in school clubs, but it seems to me they have no more right than a private school student to do so; to me, neither should.
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Official school reps

Post by First Chairman »

Having had experience with homeschool teams and other "official" teams before...

The academic world is one of trust. Certainly I would be upset if a bunch of random people just decided to band together and say they're a team from "such and such" school. There may be reasons why a school team would not declare itself affiliated with a specific school, but I think I know we would prefer that everyone truly represent their institution at any event.

I know when it comes to me, I would prefer that a team be officially recognized by its school in order for it to compete and represent its school. In general I also encourage (if not outright stipulate in some cases) that an adult chaperone be present. Now granted, we're flexible enough that the chaperone need not be a person who works at that school, but nevertheless it's necessary to have some adult supervision for events involving minors.

But I say that because there have been times when we have had to contemplate whether to take "unofficial" school teams before. In general, I do not encourage accepting unofficial teams that do not have the support of their school or similar organization because if something happens, we wind up being responsible. I grant that I can review on a case-by-case basis, but sometimes even homeschooled kids form organizations so they can participate in sports activities.
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Still talking...

Post by First Chairman »

Just continuing my thought too:

If there is a circumstance where one school team cannot declare itself affiliated with a specific school due to punitive sanctions by whatever organization is out there, I would certainly appreciate knowing the rationale. But then again, it is the TD's responsibility to be sure that it does not compromise the integrity of the competition.

As for dress codes, I don't think I officially state a dress code, but certainly I would pretty much tell everyone, this is the impression you want to give to other adults about the quality of student at your school. This is neither a Halloween costume party, nor a Victoria's Secret (Abercrobie & Fitch) shoot.
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Post by mhanna »

Some high school leagues do no allow teams, academic or otherwise, to compete against non-sanctioned or affiliated teams. Several years ago, we had to notify at least one state's high school league of the background of the schools competing in our tournament (no segregation academies, no all-star teams, etc.) before that state's teams could compete in Aiken.
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Post by Howard »

mhanna wrote:Several years ago, we had to notify at least one state's high school league of the background of the schools competing in our tournament (no segregation academies, no all-star teams, etc.) before that state's teams could compete in Aiken.
I'm befuddled. Why would another state's academic league wish to prevent their teams from competing in an event other than theirs? It would seem your event affects in no way their organization whether one of their teams competes or not.
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Post by STPickrell »

Oh, the Mock Trial thing is what I was thinking of!

Hmm. In Warren County, VA, there is a sizeable homeschool community. (A bunch of Catholic groups have set up their headquarters there and many of the workers homeschool their kids.)

I'd say there might be as many as 50-60 or so of HS age (compare to 1200 or so 10-12 at the public HS, which serves all of Warren County.)

I'd be more concerned about geographic area and student body size than about curriculum; the curriculum at any 3-4 high schools is going to be fairly different.

http://www.geocities.com/NCHAASports/

http://www.hspn.net/

As competition becomes more organized, I would eventually see some sort of "district" boundaries being drawn up as arguments might arise over where especially good players go.

http://www.home-ed-magazine.com/HEM/173 ... n_tch.html

Some arguments <i>from homeschoolers</i> against having homeschoolers play public school sports. While many are of the "Oh no! The evil gubmint's gonna try and see what we're doing!" variety; others are more practical, including one case in Wisconsin where good players would homeschool and then come back a year later, claiming it hadn't worked out, but being (oh no!) a year older, smarter, and bigger.
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Post by harshrealm »

Out of curiosity, what's a segregationist academy? My $.02: schools should at least be a club at the high school. Would it honestly be fair if the best players from say. Dorman and Brookwood, got together to be a team representing Brookman?
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Post by pakman044 »

If I were still in HS, I would get into the deepest, dark corner of my room and hide. Not that they aren't difficult enough seperately!

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