Scholastic Teams

The topic of what constitutes a school team has been a major topic of conversation since I first started attending coaches' meetings fifteen years ago. It is always a dilemma. During this time frame the Airline Community School,the Stillwater Montessori School, and the Toddy Pond School have always brought students to participate in the state competitions despite having very low enrollments. These schools have incorporated chess into their weekly activities and have been able to compete with the top programs in the state. Home school students in these communities have often been integral parts of their programs. They have not been hindered by their size in producing competitive chess programs.

For state competition the regulations of what constitute a school team is consistent with the National Scholastic requirements. The idea to widen this definition of a school team is being discussed so more students can be encouraged to participate in chess. It could potentially have an impact on the strength of schools' teams and lead to recruitment to a program.

A few years ago there was a change in how the K-8 team competitions were formatted that definitely has had a competitive impact on the smaller sized schools. It used to be that five students from each school would play five students from another school like the format that is still used at the high school level. Now a school may enter as many students as they would like in the championship section and the top five scorers' points are combined to arrive at a school's total score. Small schools are now at a disadvantage due to the fact that they are less likely to have as much depth as a bigger school, but there are more students that participate in the championship sections.

In sports in Maine there are classes depending upon the size of the school. This is impossible to do at this stage with chess because so few schools enter the state competition. It is difficult to make comparisons with other sports due to the paucity of programs. In sports competition, both schools put the same amount of players on the playing surface. Yes, bigger programs do have more substitutes to call on, but they can never h+69ave more on the court than the other team.

Where am I going with this argument you ask? I basically would like the team definition to be consistent with the national scholastic definition of a team and that formats at both the K-8 level and high school level be consistent.

I'll report out on the meeting tomorrow. It should be an interesting discussion.