Influencing players' school schedules

DrakeRQB · Post by **DrakeRQB** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 9:45 pm

This question goes out to coaches: How much influence do you have over what classes your players take? We don't force our players into registering for certain classes, of course, but in several cases we have encouraged students to take classes in subjects we are weak in as a team, such as AP Art History. Is this a common practice? I'd like to hear your thoughts.

David Riley · Post by **David Riley** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 9:14 am

While I will recommend AP classes and the like, this is not nearly as much an issue with me as telling them that they can't sign up for other activities (e.g. basketball [the season is so long they would never get a chance to play] and speech/debate [too many conflicts with Saturday tournaments]). Getting back to classes, I have the opposite problem: we're moving from an 8- to a 9-period day next year, and many of my students are upset because they can't take 9 classes (many would take 9 AP classes if they could get away with it).

rchschem · Post by **rchschem** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 9:16 am

No shame here. We push people into classes (to a degree--if they refuse, what can we do?) But, for example, we have no one in AP Euro next year, so we are "suggesting" ("Nice schedule. It would be shame if anything happened to it...") that some people take it. This is really more of a case of helping students make choices that don't really affect them negatively but do affect us positively.

Eric

DrakeRQB · Post by **DrakeRQB** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 9:33 am

We sat all the players down and got their schedules for the coming year, found some holes, and suggested that a few of them change their schedules to help us out - but if they don't, no worries - I guess we'll just have to hit that stuff harder in practice or encourage our three kids going to ACE this summer to minor in those areas.

David Riley · Post by **David Riley** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 9:41 am

Another alternative would be to get the various AP guides. I buy these as study materials for my team and they've proved pretty useful.

First Chairman · Post by **First Chairman** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 11:27 am

I'll admit, being involved in qb outside the high school classroom, it is nice that the educational value of qb is to really push students to participate in more college-prep coursework. Now, I'm not sure I would encourage students to take 8-9 AP classes in a year and still be in quiz bowl, but that is a desired outcome (in my book).