Shadle Officials Send Bad Message With Their Decision

Missy Blackshire was struggling to maintain her composure as she sat at the front table during an awards banquet last month.

Later she cried.

She cried because she believed the Ferris volleyball team and coach Stacy Ward would have been up there with her if the Saxons had won the State AAA championship.

The Saxons certainly could have won state if Blackshire had played, but she missed the state tournament for breaking the District 81 high school co-curricular activity contract a week earlier.

“It’s something I always think about,” said Blackshire, who was being honored as a record-setting, 800-meter track champion, not as a volleyball standout. “What would it have been like if I would have played in state? What would have happened? If I would have played, would we have won?”

The Saxons finished sixth without her.

Three Shadle Park boys basketball players, who made an error in judgment similar to Blackshire’s, were allowed to participate in the District 8 Tournament last week before they completed the recommended punishment. The players only missed one regular-season game. It was a bad decision by Highlanders administrators.

Students sign a contract that states they take four 2-hour intervention classes for violations regarding alcohol, drugs, narcotics or tobacco.

It is also recommended that violators be held out of competition for 14 days, although practice is allowed.

“I totally think my punishment was fair,” Blackshire said. “What upsets me is that somebody else, after what happened at Shadle, can play. They should have the same punishment.”

At Shadle Park, the punishment was cut short.

There is a loophole - and that’s really what it is - that allows a principal to waive the 14 days for first-time violations.

That was done at Shadle Park, principal Emmett Arndt said, because it was a first offense. And in the grand scheme of things, it was a relatively minor one, by good kids who turned themselves in.

That’s Missy Blackshire. A first-time offender who self-reported.

Shadle Park activities coordinator Randy Ryan said it also was decided that since a holiday extended the time before four classes could be completed beyond the normal time frame (the classes are Mondays and Wednesdays), it wasn’t fair to drag out the punishment.

“The final decision was the kids shouldn’t have to go longer,” Ryan said, and they picked up the fourth class Monday night.

What is the message Shadle Park is sending?

Ferris volleyball coach Ward, who had to face her team after Blackshire’s mistake and then again after the Shadle situation, said, “I just think it makes it really hard for me in the future to tell athletes they have to follow the rules and these are the consequences if they’re not rules for everybody. With teenagers, dealing with the spirit of the law is way more important than dealing with the letter of the law.”

Teenage drinking is a problem that needs to be faced proactively. You can’t have a separate set of rules for bad kids. Who determines who is bad and who tells parents their kid gets the bad-kid rules?

Missy Blackshire is a good kid. So are Shadle Park basketball players Nate Dunham, Jeff Meyers and Tom Mohr.

“The lessons we all learned from not having Missy and seeing that actions have consequences are far greater than anything we could have learned by winning state,” Ward said. “Unfortunately, the lesson to Missy is life isn’t fair.

“On the Shadle Park basketball team (the lesson) is if you screw up and it’s a big enough game, the adults in your life will find a loophole. Making them do 14 days isn’t telling kids they’re bad or you hate them, it’s telling them there are consequences to their actions. That’s one of the most important lessons to teach in life.”

Another thing to remember is the Shadle Park players did not make the decision to cut short their punishment. Although some harassment goes with the territory, Ferris students stepped way over the line when the two teams met last Friday, and if there were any attempts to curb the abuse it wasn’t enough to stop it from becoming offensive.

At some point along the way, people have to know what’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong. That should have been the Shadle Park administration, as well as the Ferris crowd-control supervisors and Greater Spokane League officials.

The Mead school district has a one-strike-and-out-for-the-season policy, and while the merits of that are open to debate, it does eliminate misguided administrators.

Athletics and other co-curricular activities play an important role in keeping students headed in a positive direction. With a second chance, kids can admit their mistakes, deal with the consequences - if they are applied fairly - and move on.

Education is learning from mistakes and not repeating them. Educators can occasionally use education.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Dave Trimmer The Spokesman-Review