Rhonda Alves
Assistant Academic Director

The political landscape changes -- new education jargon emerges... teachers just keep on teaching and administrators keep on administering. Sometimes maligned--always consistent--Thank you so much for the creativity and stability that you bring to the lives of Texas’ school-children.

I hope that you have great plans for the summer break; restful plans anyway. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I hope you will include in those plans the Capital Conference at the University of Texas at Austin June 27-29. Information is posted on the UIL web site at http:// www.uil.utexas.edu/aca/capcon.html. All elementary and junior high events will be included in conference presentations.

I am concerned about the accessibility of the UIL program for all elementary and junior high students. The number of schools unable to compete this year due to lack of acceptance by a UIL district is significantly higher than it was last school year.

The League allows elementary and junior high cam-puses to form UIL districts voluntarily. Some school districts do this by applying the high school alignment to their lower campuses. While this system works for school districts with only one or two elementary and junior high campuses, it usually does not work for school districts which have multiple campuses. Since it only takes three schools to form a UIL district, multi-campus school districts tend to form UIL districts with only their campuses as members. Both methods are equally accept-able, and it is all a matter of choice, up to a point.

The League has the authority to assign campuses to existing UIL districts. UIL has not done so because until recently we were able to find somewhere for the peti-tioning campus to attend a meet. For the last two years, though there have been cases in which some campuses could find no UIL district that would allow them to participate. This school year, between 15-20 campuses (of which I am aware) were refused membership by every UIL district they contacted. It appears to be easy to refuse the request of an adult, but it isn’t the adult who is punished. A lot of kids were denied the opportunity to participate in UIL academic competition this year. This is unacceptable. It is time to enforce the UIL rule, which allows the League to overrule a UIL district’s decision to exclude a campus.

The process is this: coordinators and administrations contact me when they are looking for a district meet in which they can participate. I provide a list of contacts in the same or neighboring area codes. It is the responsibility of petitioning campuses to ask district directors to grant them membership. Most of the time, UIL districts are really nice about it and allow the campus to enter their meets. Petitioning campuses may have to contact several district directors before finding someone who says "yes." In situations like this the system has worked.

Reluctance on the part of UIL districts comprised only of campuses from a single school district to admit a school from a separate school district is understandable. This is not to say that it is always acceptable. UIL districts with eight or more campuses as members also have some ground in denying membership to a ninth school. Again, this is not always the best decision. I sympathize the least with UIL districts consisting of fewer than eight member campuses, which are not all from the same school district that refuse membership to petitioning schools.

Petitioning districts have more responsibility in the process than just calling and asking to join a district. The most important action is to start looking for a UIL district at the very beginning of the school year or even in the spring before. Now is a good time.

It is unfair to expect a UIL district to admit a new campus two weeks prior to the district meet. A few have done so, and I am eternally grateful to them, but it is definitely above and beyond the call of duty. To be fair, several campuses began the hunt in August and Septem-ber and were still calling districts in February and March. Don’t miss the planning meeting! Some schools expect to be called by the campuses with which they competed the previous year. When this doesn’t happen and they don’t contact the district director themselves, they just may miss the district meet. I have dealt with several campuses that missed a fall district meet because they were waiting to be contacted regarding the spring meet. It is unreasonable to expect other schools to take care of you. Call.

Another option for districtless campuses is to form their own UIL districts. No permission is needed from the League to do so. Just find two other campuses that will agree to form a district and jump in.

Sometimes a school doesn’t have to look any further than its own backyard. Ask non-active campuses in your school district or geographical area to join you, and don’t overlook area charter schools. Offer to host the meet. Campuses, who are desperately looking for a place to go, must be willing to shoulder a lot of the work load. Assistance from the state office is readily available. Call me. I will help you, and I can probably put you in touch with someone in your area that can serve as a mentor.

Look beyond population. It is not necessary that all the schools in a UIL district come from the same classification. I know quite a few A and AA campuses that easily hold their own with AAAAA schools. Kids are kids. In the end it comes down to the commitment of the school district to the program, rather than location, socio-economic factors or size.

Be creative. A campus may have to send its sixth- grade contestants to a district meet separate to the one attended by grades two through five. Remember that UIL allows students to compete one grade up. Your sixth-grade number sense team may have to compete as seventh-graders at a junior high meet. The only event in which this is a handicap is science. Students have only two years of eligibility for the junior high science contests.

Be flexible. Petitioning campuses may have to do things differently than they have done in the past. A school cannot expect other campuses to conform to its ideas for running a meet. Everyone must follow UIL rules, but that does not mean that a one-size-fits-all system exists. So don’t join a district and then proceed to boss the other schools. Remember the "you’re not the boss of me" phrase so handy in childhood?

Start looking for a UIL district early, form your own UIL district, motivate other campuses to participate with you, step up to the plate when duties are assigned, consider all avenues for participation, and be nice to people. Sounds like something from an everything-I-need- to-know-I-learned in.... book.

Surely out of 330+ districts meets, everyone can find a niche. Have a wonderful summer, and I’ll see you at Capital Conference or at a fall activity workshop.