Boundary school trustees have agreed to write a letter of support for a Grand Forks Secondary student to play volleyball at Mount Sentinel.
The issue was raised when BC School Sports declared Myles Christman ineligible to play volleyball at the South Slocan school, even though his older brother was given permission under similar circumstances.
“What’s happening in rural areas like ours now, our West Kootenay zone, the competition has declined dramatically for kids,” explained superintendent Michael Strukoff. “The number of sports being offered [has dropped because of] the declining enrolment has reduced the number of students, which is a contributing factor.”
The family currently has a lawyer working on their case pro-bono and hopes to have everything settled for next year.
“We don’t have any extraordinary influence than anyone else would have but I think that the feeling was, should the board of education add their support to the family to have BC School Sports waive this particular eligibility rule [for next year],” continued Strukoff.
Trustee Cathy Riddle pointed out the issue needs to be addressed on a larger scale.
“With the declining enrolment and declining offering of any kind of sport, we’re going to run into this way more often,” stated Riddle. “I think we’d be far better served if we asked them to take a look at the rural schools in particular. If we just write it for one single request, we’ll be facing this over and over again.”