Penn Hills School District officials suspend academic eligibility requirement, stick with PIAA standards

Penn Hills School District officials have temporarily suspended an academic eligibility requirement for athletics and other activities due to students struggling with learning during the first nine weeks of school.

The board voted 7-0 Wednesday night to move forward with the plan. Board Vice President Yusef Thompson Sr. was absent.

The district had required all student to maintain at least a 2.0 grade-point-average (GPA) to participate in activities such as sports and band.

That has been suspended until Nov. 15, the start of the second grading period.

Students now only need to maintain a 1.0 GPA, which equates to passing four classes with a D grade. It also meets PIAA standards.

Board member Rob Marra said he pushed for the eligibility change after receiving a message from a band parent two weeks ago.

The message said about 13 band members would be academically ineligible to perform at a football game only a few days after the committee meeting.

“These are A and B students, these are honor roll students. So, obviously there was something wrong with the way we were delivering the learning initially with the online curriculum,” Marra said. “It’s improved dramatically, and that’s why we’re comfortable now going in the second quarter. Grades are going to be reset the beginning of the second quarter.

”A lot of people got so far behind in the beginning of this year that it was very difficult for them to bring that back up to an average of 2.0.”

Parent Heather Houlihan disagreed with the board’s decision. She said the district should help the students who were struggling instead of lowering Penn Hills’ standards.

“This is appalling,” she said. “I just can’t believe that we would say that four passing grades is enough, that you can get four ‘Ds.’ It absolutely astounds me that that would be the first avenue that we would take. … Keep the 2.0 where it is. Pull the grades. Drill it down. … Why they’re ineligible is so much more important to me as a parent as to whether or not they are.”

Marra said he agreed the district needs to help struggling students and identify problems, but there was not enough time to do that before upcoming games.

Parent Lisa Sullivan said participating in activities can have a significant impact on student health, and approved the move to have more students be eligible as they and district staff get more familiar with their teaching and learning environments.

“Sometimes the academics come secondary to the emotional well-being of the children,” Sullivan said. “If that’s what helps them get out of bed that day, then that’s fine. We’re in a pandemic, folks. We have to be a little more patient with one another.”

Penn Hills started its school year Sept. 8 with a hybrid model. Students were split into groups with one group having in person classes Monday and Tuesday.

The second group was in school Thursday and Friday. All students were learning online when not in the buildings.

The board approved a plan to transition students to in-person classes four days a week starting with kindergarten in November, and other grades gradually coming back in December and January.

Those plans may change due to the rise in covid-19 cases. Families would still have online learning options available.

Board President Erin Vecchio said no parent or coach mentioned any student-athlete eligibility issues, and the 2.0 GPA requirement will be reinstated in mid-November.

“They should be caught up by then, but we’re going to take it case by case,” Vecchio said.

“I didn’t want to do it from the get-go,” Vecchio said. “It’s our job to make sure they’re getting educated, but if they’re not comfortable with doing this thing then how can we hold the kids accountable? These were straight-A students who were now failing because they weren’t understanding how we were doing any of this.”

District Athletic Director Stephanie Strauss declined to comment about the eligibility policy.