Trend Leaves SRB 9th Grade with Only 2 Boys for This School Year
The Valley is a sports crazy place. We really love our football, baseball, softball, and volleyball, and we like basketball too. But, the love has grown to an obsession for some. There is a growing trend where parents hold their kids back in junior high so they can grow and mature an extra year to help them in sports. It’s a sad state of affairs, but this has now happened at Strong River Bend (SRB) High.
A SRB teacher alerted me to the fact that there is only two boys in the 9th grade at SRB High this school year. They told me that the reason was almost all the boys were held back in 8th grade for sports (mostly baseball). The teacher said the parents started discussing it in the spring, and they all were on board except two.
I was able to catch up with SRB High Principal Dr. Dick Belding. Belding said, “Yes, I’m fully aware of this, and I’m not crazy about it. But, the parents ultimately have control over their kids, and they make the decision whether to hold them back or not. We had to expand the size of our 8th grade classes because of this crap, and our teachers aren’t happy about that. We’ll manage as best we can.”
One father of a boy that was held back said, “I really didn’t want to hold Jaxsen back. I thought it was retarded, but all his buddies got held back. He’s on the small side, and we have him on that HGH. So, it’ll give him another year to grow and mature. I do think it will help him with baseball a good bit. But, he’s not going to learn anything new in the classroom. His mom kept at me about him staying with his buddies, so I went along with it.”
A mom of one of the two boys that moved onto 9th grade said, “This is so ridiculous. My son doesn’t play sports; he’s in the band. So, this has never crossed my mind. I just can’t fathom doing this. I’ve heard most of those boys suck at baseball anyway. One good thing about it for Jody is that he’ll have a much better chance of getting a girlfriend this year. He won’t have to deal with those cocky baseball punks.”
SRB is the first school in The Valley that has had an issue with this trend. Will other schools have to deal with it too? We shall see.
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