Football Jamboree Exemplifies Middle School Activities Growth
The first-ever Middle School Football Jamboree highlights the effort by DMPS to increase middle school activities.
When future Roughriders and Polar Bears-to-be took the field last night to begin the first-ever DMPS Middle School Football Jamboree at East’s Williams Stadium, there was a strong whiff of brand new in the air.
But the event was more than a beginning. It was also a culmination, a showcase that drew lots of attention to the lots of attention that district officials have directed at the importance of extra-curricular involvements in the overall makeup of a student, particularly at the crossroads stage of middle school.
Eight teams squared off in a series of controlled scrimmages. They were organized by feeder patterns; two each representing Roosevelt, Lincoln and East; one apiece for North and Hoover, smallest of the district’s comprehensive high schools.
Sunshine electrified the bright yellow helmets of the Huskies. Smiles beamed from the faces of lithe, fired-up cheerleaders along the sidelines. Horns blaring from the scoreboard signaled the end of warmups and referees’ whistles called captains together for fateful coin tosses. A steady stream of fans began to color in the empty white bank of bleachers.
This is what district administrators were talking about when they presented a report to the school board last month about the plan to ratchet up extra-curricular programming for 6th-8th graders. It looks and feels a lot different on a sunny September after-school afternoon than it does in a series of PowerPoint slides.
The Polar Cubs scored on each of their three possessions and mauled Roosevelt’s ‘B’ squad, 24-0. They have some big, promising players. But they only suited up 16 eighth-graders. Roosevelt dressed 45 between their two units. Maybe when the victors get back to class at Harding Middle School they’ll have some basis to recruit others to join them. Coaches are better. Uniforms are more uniform and newer. Participation fees have been reduced to virtually nothing ($10). And you should have seen that scoreboard!
The football jamboree was inaugural, like last year’s citywide middle school wrestling meet, but more important than stand-alone events is the overall breadth of activity programs at the middle school level in DMPS. Cross-country for boys and girls has been added this year. So has cheerleading for girls. And so have extra-curricular opportunities in music, drama, urban arts, debate, journalism and student government. The jamboree (“a long mixed program of entertainment; a noisy or unrestrained carouse; a large festive gathering,” according to Merriam Webster) is year round!
More than ever before middle school students are getting exposure to activities that used to be exclusive to high school. How come?
Say an adolescent who’s not so keen on science and math loves to sing and dance. Maybe another who’s bored with writing essays for English class likes the idea of writing for the school paper. It’s like getting kids to eat. If they’re tired of the same old meat and potatoes spice up the menu. Entice them to eat their vegetables by offering some dessert.
It’s not a surrender to let them do as they choose. It’s a triumph of solid research into what makes students tick and stick. The more reasons you give them to enjoy school the more they achieve in all areas. Data to that effect is abundant and intuitive.
The district has hired Activities Specialists who will collaborate with OST Coordinators at the middle schools to bolster after-school programming. Some buildings have already established leadership groups like Harding’s Wolf Pack and McCombs’ Golden Eagles to foster the notion that school can be cool and turn peer pressure, long thought to be exclusively a negative force of human nature, into a positive factor.
OST stands for Out of School Time,” explained Jason Allen who, along with Allyson Vukovich, is one of the district’s Activities Specialists. “Their purpose will be to direct and manage the overall program of extracurricular activities for the middle school,” much like their counterparts at the high school level, the Activities Directors. They will also collaborate with one another as the district establishes a centralized system for collection and analysis of data about extra-curricular activity patterns and their correlation with overall student achievement and academic progress.
Movement 515’s after-school poetry workshops have scaled up from Harding/North to districtwide under the leadership of Kristopher Rollins and Emily Lang, the district’s joint Urban Arts Coordinators.
“Traditionally, middle school youth have been denied particular opportunities or limited to the athletic arena,” Rollins commented. “By increasing and diversifying the types of programs offered we as a district can reach other populations who previously felt left out. The earlier we begin engaging youth the better chance we have at retaining their interest in the educational process and programs where they thrive and find success, as well as self-empowerment.”
Middle school athletics participation increased by 40% in 2013-14 from the previous year and promises to spike again this year with the additional sports that are available. And Rollins and Lang are already reporting widespread interest in their creative writing/urban activism programming. They’ve tapped into a wellspring of young potential and eagerness that core academics alone cannot.
Three primary goals moving forward, according to that recent administrative report, are:
- To benchmark student engagement through a system of data collection and reporting.
- To demonstrate the impact of student activities on the Gallup Poll survey of students’ general attitudes toward school and outlooks for the future.
- To create…additional communications tools that provide consistent opportunities for parents to be engaged in student activities.
For instance, athletics pages have been developed that will be embedded within the websites of each of the district’s five comprehensive high schools. Those pages will include links for “Future Scarlets, Future Riders, Future Huskies, Future Rails,” and, “Future Polar Bears.”
Little did the 8th grade gridders know they were tackling more than ball carriers last night at the jamboree. The persistent problem of how to get at-risk kids hooked on school? It took a pounding last night at Williams Stadium.
Video of the DMPS Middle School Football Jamboree
GoPro Video Highlights from Davion Norton’s Helmet
DMPS is coming to play, in more ways than ever before!
Photos of the DMPS Middle School Football Jamboree
Created with flickr slideshow.
