No Study Hall Leaves Cheerleaders in Academic Confusion

At the start of the 2024-2025 school year, students involved in dance and cheerleading no longer have an option for an athletic study hall during the football season.

Students that are in athletic study hall use that time to get homework or any other classwork done. Athletic study hall is designed for students to choose an alternative for P.E. during their sports season. Sports practices get out between 6pm-8pm, games between 9pm-10pm depending if they’re away or not. This doesn’t leave much opportunity for other time consuming activities. Though when students on the dance and cheer teams asked for an athletic study hall during the football season their requests were denied.
Central cheerleader, Kayla Kinney, said “I still have other things to do outside of school and usually don’t have time to do it at home because it’s late at night and I have to get ready for the next day.” She then continued to say “I want to keep doing what I love, so I want to focus on both school work and cheer.”

Even if the cheerleaders and dancers asked the P.E. teachers, they were denied the opportunity, making these students feel as if it was unfair. This made the students confused and were left to wonder why the policy was changed. Maddie Dorsla is on the fence about even being a part of cheer because of the new policy.

Dorsla commented, “I don’t have time outside of school because practice ends at 6pm sometimes 7pm and I have to work.” She then expressed that she strongly disagrees with the new policy because “practices are just as intense with extended practices and games.”

When interviewing Principal Joe Williams, he said how “cheerleading is a sport and they go by competition season and that their off season is not as rigorous.” He also shared how “the secretary that was in place [in previous years] made some mistakes and there only should have been a study hall for competition season in the first place.”

Many of the students involved in cheer and dance are worried about having time for their studies. Though they might not have study halls anymore, freshmen and sophomores still have an automatic advisory during their lunch period. The juniors and seniors also have different subject help during their lunch period.