Getting Players Help

Meet w them and parents and make plan together to get them back on track. Let them know what help is out there w tutoring etc.  The counselor can help you with that info. 

Great attitude in wanting to help your guys but to be honest all this should be coming from the teachers they are struggling with.  They should have been in contact with the parents around the middle of the grading periods when it looked like they were going to struggle.  After each grading period the teacher should have met with the parents to show where they are struggling and everyone come up with a plan to help them be in a better position to succeed.  At least that's how my school does it.  

Our jobs as teachers are to educate and help these kids learn and be successful.  That includes trying to head problems off at the pass before they become problems.  After all this has been done and they still fail then it is 100% all their fault.  Ultimately they need to realize the only person responsible for their education is themselves. They have to do the work, doing the studying, taking the notes, going to the teacher to get missed work and turn the stuff in on time.  They do that then 90% of the academic problems they face don't exist.  But if they struggle to do these things then it falls to the teachers to communicate these issues to the parents so they can do something about it.  If the parents can't / won't do anything about it then they get what they deserve.

Now back to your original question - is it possible to get them back eligible before the season is over?  Reason I ask that is because in North Carolina everything is determined by the previous semester.  So I'm assuming the fall semester is what made them ineligible so in NC they couldn't do anything the entire spring semester.  Then how they do in the spring will determine if they can do anything next fall.  A 6 week (or 9 week) grading period cannot bring them back.

The next question do you have block scheduling or all year classes?  If you have all year classes then see if you can find them tutors to help with the subjects so they don't fall any further behind.  Have them bring you a weekly grade in each class.  This now forces them to talk to the teacher and keep up to date on anything they may be missing.  Talk to the parents and get them on board (if possible).  If they have block scheduling then they will be starting brand new classes so that changes it a little bit.  Have them do the weekly grade reports to you so they won't start off bad.  After a couple weeks of this you will now start seeing which classes they may struggle in.  Have them come up with a plan to find tutoring - put that responsible on them so they can take some ownership in their own education.  If they school does some type of progress reports (usually halfway through the grading period) and it doesn't look good tell the parents to set up a meeting with the teacher (assuming the teacher doesn't do this) to find out what they are struggling with and develop a plan to get better.  The sad thing is this is how you figure out if a teacher is any good or not.  If they can tell you the strengths and weaknesses of what the kid is doing they are probably a good teacher.  If they can't then they probably stink.  It happens.

Regardless of what you do make sure you do everything in a way that makes the boys realize they have to take ownership in their education.  You can set up and make them go to all the tutors in the world but it won't matter unless they are willing to take ownership in it.

Coach... You ask a lot of questions that I really don't know the answers to. I believe that they are going by Quarter and if that is the case then they won't be elegible until mid April... then would need 14 practices before being allowed to play games which would put them into May and the end of the season. If it is the case that they can become elegible but not have enough practice time to play... What I would have them do is be a part of the team and come to practices but not allow them to play this season. I'm having a meeting with the AD today to figure out a course of action.

I'm still not sure the reason for the failing grades. It could be lack of doing homework or lack of understanding of the subjects... once I get a better idea of what the issue is I can come up with a plan of attack. But thank you for your well thought out response.

That would be great if teachers called parents of kids who r struggling, but unfortunately some have 100 stu throughout day and don't do that. At our school they post grades online so it's up to parents/students to check and see how they r doing. Parents r the ones who sign up for conferences. 

Our schools check grades weekly of athletes. If they dont have required grades they sit out next game/week until grades go up. Gives them a chance to work hard and make it back  onto field, court. 

some teachers like having coaches help out because they can sometimes get kids to understand better than they can about how import school is. Having as many kids as possible on a kids side is great. 

I believe our state has the same rules as Coach 2709's does, that a player becomes ineligible for the Spring Semester based on the Fall Semester.  Then, if he does poorly in the Spring, he would be ineligible for the following Fall Semester.

Make sure you maximize your meeting with the AD and find out all of the rules regarding grades, not just the ones that pertain to these specific players.  For us, when the first grade check comes out, there is a window of opportunity for the student to improve those grades and regain eligibility for a fair portion of the season.  Also, our students have some sort of exception they can choose to use once over the four years of HS that gives them a pass with stipulations.

Coach Sampson I'm assuming from what you said that you don't teach at the school.  If that's the case and you're a first year coach I totally agree with cabbagedad about getting a lot from the meeting with the AD.  Sadly I would think that you would have already had that meeting or got that information from him or her by now but it is what it is.  Just be ready to move forward.  Also, whatever state you are in will have an athletic association and they will have a website that should have a bunch of information.  Here is the one for North Carolina www.nchsaa.org so you can see what it looks like.  You can probably contact these people with any question and get an answer that will leave no doubt as to what you can or cannot do.  Just make sure your AD doesn't think you're going over his head if you do that.  It doesn't hurt my feelings any if my coaches contact the NCHSAA as long as they tell me what they found out.  I'm a 2nd year AD and need to learn a lot of stuff.  I just want to get things right.

playball2011 I agree with you that teachers should call parents if a kid is struggling but it would also be nice if parents would keep up with their kids too.  The sad thing is we are living in the 21st century when communication and technology has made things so much simpler / easier in finding out grades and communicating.  But it seems that the dialogue between teachers / parents is getting worse.  I've been doing this a long time and some of it was before email and internet yet it was easier to get up with Little Johnny's parents over his grade than it is now.  

Honestly I think if a teacher has to rely on a coach to keep a kid motivated / behaving in class that tells me a lot about the kid and / or the teacher.  A teacher needs to control their classroom and the ones who send kids out left and right tend to have the most trouble.  Kids know if you have control or not and if you don't they will push you.  You will have that situation where you have to call for administration to step in but those are rare.  In my 16 years of teaching I've only needed administration maybe 5 times I think.  

Our high school softball team had a star player who struggled academically. Athletes had two sets of rules to deal with compliance. There were the state rules and the school rules. The school rules could make an athlete ineligible in any given week by not passing in an assignment. 

Freshman year this girl missed a handful of games. Soph year the coach was informed my daughter was a tutor for middle school kids across the street. The coach talked to my daughter about tutoring only the teammate. The coach pulled the two aside at the first practice and said, "Not only are you two teammates, you just became best friends and study partners." Junior year the girl's grades were way out of the danger zone. Her dad told me my daughter was such a *itch about getting homework done his daughter was scared straight. The problem wasn't intelligence. It was laziness. I'm not sure if this would work with boys. But it's a suggestion.

Not to change the subject but, you have to look at the academic history of the players, there might be a learning disability (ADHD, ADD), is this the first time that they have had bad grades? If so then the above is a mute point. My oldest (2015) has ADHD and plays football and power lifts, he struggled his sophomore year and couldn't play football because of his grades, we had a conference with the school counselor and discussed accommodations that helped him improve his grades, we also got him a tutor that has helped him immensely. 

Don't care for the idea that kid who struggled in fall/winter has to sit out all baseball in spring. What motivation do they have to do better?  If they know they may only miss a week or two until grades r up they may work Harder.

I know of a school that has a running grade system. Their grades do not end on a specific semester date. If they have a 90 in Nov they keep 90 and go up and down w it for rest of yr. grades r checked often for athletes and they sit if they r low until they bring them up-usu two wk time period. 

I find kids don't want to let coach down more than some care about letting a certain teacher down. For some the coaches can be their father figure.

In our school system there are interim reports that go out at the mid point of the grading period (semester).  I would think the school system in question would have something similar.  At that point the teachers, parents and students should be meeting to see what the problem(s) are and how to take corrective action.  From the OP we don't know if something like this did or did not happen.  I find it hard to believe the student-athletes in question didn't know they were on the bubble. I'm inclined to believe the students had a chance to better their grades and didn't or weren't able to bring their grades up to the acceptable level. 

It's a tough life lesson.  It would really be bad if they were seniors.

We all know they are students first, then athletes.

Coach,  I wouldn't have them participate as part of the team this year.  Your school and/or district may not allow participation either.  In my son's district if you're not eligible to play you can't sign up for the sport, and if you don't sign up you can't practice, receive a uniform, travel, or participate in team activities.  Those students should spend their afternoons improving their grades.