Rapid City School District punishes the Catholic Kids. Why? Because they can.

In the Rapid City Journal this morning, there's a Kevin Woster story how the Rapid City School District disinvited the St. Elizabeth Seton Junior High school team who had regularly attended the event because they thought the people at the Senior High might have been recruiting athletes.

And the school district isn't saying why they're exhibiting their bias against the catholic school. Just that they are.
The Seton team, which is part of a Rapid City Catholic School System that includes St. Thomas More High School, was not invited to compete at the popular middle-school meet this year. That was a break from tradition that Catholic-school coaches and administrators suspect could be payback over allegations of improper recruiting of athletes by Thomas More.

“They wouldn’t let us in,” St. Thomas More principal Wayne Sullivan said Monday. “I just think it’s a shame because kids are the ones who are being hurt. We’ve always been invited to the West River Invitational.”

and...

Mark Foley, athletic director for Rapid City middle schools, declined to comment for the story on Monday, referring questions to school district superintendent Peter Wharton. Wharton wouldn’t say why the Seton track team wasn’t invited to this year’s track meet, which is organized by public-school officials. And he declined to speculate on whether the Catholic system engages in improper recruiting.

and...

“I would always leave open the opportunity to change our minds and look at it, and how it would benefit our young people,” he said. “I’m more than willing to have that conversation.”
Read it all here.

Really, this is crap. They're punishing the school kids because they think an administrator did something they didn't like. But they won't come out and say it. Like a little girl hiding behind her mother's skirt, they couch their language, and leave everyone to guess why it occurred.

If they're doing it for the reason 'as intimated' then come out and say it. Stand up, and be counted. God forbid, that would actually require some intestinal fortitude. Instead, we get school officials who are doing their best to be weasels.

What a lesson for the kids in that junior high school. What a lesson.

Comments

Anonymous said…
If some grown-up did something shady, then say it. If it happened, there must be some grounds to it and some proof. If no proof exists, then it's petty on the part of those in charge and it's the kids who pay. The grownups need to grow up and get over it and think of the kids.
Anonymous said…
that's because for many educrats (education bureaucrats and their unions, as opposed to the actual teachers), it's not about teaching the kids. it's about protecting and even enlarging the system.

--lexrex
Anonymous said…
How can a publicly funded school exclude anyone from anything? And if they lock out a Christian school, does that constitute religious discrimination?
Douglas said…
As usual, rightwing theocrats have it backward.

Church schools can be invited to public school tournaments as a courtesy. They have no obligation to do so.

In any case, it is just athletics. It is not a mathematics or science fair competition or debate. Gotta get your priorities straight too.
Anonymous said…
Looks to me like a one-year thing. You came last year to recruit at a school event, you can sit out this year. Get the message?

Next year you're invited again. End of story.
Anonymous said…
Onteresting how its ok for a catholic school to recruit illegally and when they are called on it theocrats scream discrimination. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Follow the rules or get out. It is as simple as that.
Anonymous said…
I would say it al depends on what happend "Last Year"!!!
Don't you think that Public Schoolsi n SD recruit kids from other public schools!
Hey they do.
Do theywant thekids for the abilities mental or physical they want them for both. It is for their abilities or the money??? That may be the big question.
So Doug poster 9:10 am your comment dosn't fit here at all...
Anonymous said…
So it's Ok for public schools to exclude gays and anyone else they don't like from their functions too? I guess so...
Anonymous said…
And here I thought that Catholic kids in Rapid City were just inherently more athletic than the other kids.
Anonymous said…
10:03 What?????????
Anonymous said…
There is absolutely no violation for talking to 8th graders about coming to your school, even if Seton were doing it, which they said they were not.

I know Stevens coaches have approached Seton 8th grade runners to come run for their program.

It is only against SDHSAA rules for coaches to contact 9th grade and older students, unless the students make the intitial contact expressing interest in coming to their school.

So simple even a public school grad could understand.
PP said…
1:19am - that comment is gone. Don't you dare post it again.

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