Grade Requirements for High School Athletes

I read with great interest “No Grade, No Play” (Pro-Con, March 23). As a former participant in a high school music program, I am disappointed in the attitudes expressed by Santa Monica English teacher Carol Jago [who argued for grade requirements]. It is because of people like her, who view arts and athletics programs as extracurricular rather than cocurricular, that music programs are dwindling, drama programs have no places to perform and student athletes are begging family members for money under the guise of fund-raising.

When you view such programs as peripheral rather than integral to a student’s education, you not only diminish the very real importance of students’ creative outlets, you deprive those students of the very thing that makes us human. Arts and sports programs teach our children things that math, English and science can never teach. I learned such things as tolerance, time management and teamwork while participating in my high school’s marching band. It is those same “extra-curricular” programs that teach students how to survive in our increasingly competitive business world. Research has shown that students involved in these programs have higher SAT scores and have an increased chance of getting into college.

The bottom line is that forcing students to earn a certain grade in order to perform encourages cheating in order to meet that requirement and at the same time discourages participation in activities that help to make students better people.

KIMBERLEY WAIBEL

Tustin

I note that the article [against requiring] minimum passing grades to participate in sports was written by a teacher of “expressive arts at several schools around Los Angeles” and the article in favor was written by a teacher of “English at Santa Monica High School.”

I’d bet there are no professors of expressive arts at Harvard. And nobody with a D average plays football. Our schools are created to teach subjects such as English and history--unless I am mistaken and football is all that matters.

RICHARD MAUN

Whittier