Last year, as is the case most years, High School South’s science olympiad and science bowl teams each won their state championships. Both went on to place in the top 20 at their respective nationals. Their reward? Perhaps a rushed announcement when most students are bleary-eyed and weary, and another anonymous trophy gracing the halls of the science wing’s cabinet.
If they were looking for gratification at the spring pep rally, they would be disappointed. These students would find themselves on the bleachers, wondering why kids are made to leave class to celebrate athletic teams, while their own national achievements are sidelined. The same can be said for the model United Nations team, the debate team, the math team and every other competitive team. To quote a member of the town’s Facebook group, “my daughter was on the debate team at North years ago, and if you weren’t on the team, you wouldn’t know it existed.”
This is, of course, an issue. We shouldn’t be a district where certain achievements are celebrated and others are ignored. But this ordinarily wouldn’t be too much of one; the kids that do science olympiad, much like the kids who do football, don’t do it for glamor. They do it for love of the game.
But this issue is tinged differently, now that the district has poured so much time and treasure into fighting the NJSIAA on football. Because there’s no way to square that with the logic that academic students usually hear, which is that the district isn’t in the business of helping minorities; it has to go with the majority. I’d say the majority of students are probably in those bleachers wondering why their struggling clubs aren’t celebrated or assisted.
Maybe they’re editors of the High School South newspaper, glumly considering that their newspaper won’t be funded for a print edition next year. Maybe they’re model UN’ers, scraping together hundreds of dollars for bus fees which their athletic classmates don’t need to pay. Maybe they’re at homecoming, wondering why their tennis matches, basketball games, debate tournaments and math meets aren’t given a fraction of the recognition.
This is why the NJSIAA effort rubbed so many the wrong way. Not because they wanted football to die or kids to be left without a team. But because it raised these fresh memories; leading them to ask “what about us? Where were you when we needed aid? Where is our tooth-and-nail moment?”
The solution? It’s simple. Now that the district has made good on “whole child,” perhaps it could take a stab at “every child.”
— Arnav Sood, West Windsor
