GMS Cheer Constitution a hot topic at Thursday school board meeting

In the Groesbeck ISD School Board meeting last night, Middle School Principal Kenna Moody and Cheer Sponsor Holly Black proposed two significant changes to the GMS Cheerleader Constitution, and a lively discussion between board members and administrators followed.

Currently, the GMS Cheer Try-Outs are structured to allow eight in-coming seventh graders and eight in-coming eighth-graders to earn spots on the team, as well as one eighth grade mascot.

“What we’re proposing is decreasing the number of cheerleaders by four; if it stays the way it is currently that would be decreasing two spots per grade level so that we can fit on a microbus instead of a real bus. Total savings of about $1,600 dollars that we’d like to spend on safety equipment and tumbling,” Moody said. “The second part of the proposal is that we take top 12, not six for eighth grade and six for the seventh grade; it’s if you’re the best of the 12, you get a spot.”

This proposed Top 12 format mirrors the structure that was adopted in recent years at Groesbeck High School. Moody also proposed allowing the mascot position to be open to both grade levels. Reasons cited for requesting these cheer structure changes were numerous, including financial savings to the district, easier travel arrangements/chaperoning for a smaller sized team, more competitive success, allowing talent and hard work a better chance at making the team, etc. 

Several board members raised issues with the idea of a possible majority age group within the team negatively impacting social dynamics, while other board members agreed with the proposal to tighten competition by not restricting positions on the team to a number of available grade level spots. The questions of what the parents would prefer and think is fair, and what best serves the children came up many times in the discussion.

After thoroughly debating the pros and cons of proposed changes for about an hour, the board agreed to decrease the size of the team from a total of 16 to 12, but maintained the six spots available per grade level. The board did, however, open the mascot position to in-coming seventh or eighth grade students.

For more information about how this decision was reached, along with several other topics of discussion from this meeting, look out for the School Board story in next week’s edition of the Journal.