GILROY
– GIlroy High School athletes will be required to sign a code of
conduct this year that lists eligibility requirements and
establishes criteria for disciplining athletes across all
sports.
The development of a defined and uniform policy is the result of
an incident in March in which four baseball players involved with
drugs were first kicked off the team and later reinstated.
Policy, until now, has varied between sports and coaches, with
discipline left up to the coach’s discretion, GHS Athletic Director
Jack Daley said.
By Lori Stuenkel

GILROY – GIlroy High School athletes will be required to sign a code of conduct this year that lists eligibility requirements and establishes criteria for disciplining athletes across all sports.

The development of a defined and uniform policy is the result of an incident in March in which four baseball players involved with drugs were first kicked off the team and later reinstated.

Policy, until now, has varied between sports and coaches, with discipline left up to the coach’s discretion, GHS Athletic Director Jack Daley said.

“We want to have a uniform policy that cuts across all the sports that can be agreed upon by all the coaching staff,” Daley said. “We want to make sure it’s clear, get it in writing, and make sure that it’s communicable to parents and that it’s communicable to athletes.”

Students can expect to see and sign the agreement, still in development, within a few weeks. A copy also will be sent home for parents to reference.

Students signing the code, which will apply to all extracurricular activities, will pledge to not use drugs or alcohol and conduct themselves in a responsible manner.

“The whole intent is to clearly communicate expectations,” said Edwin Diaz, superintendent of GUSD.

The code elaborates on past practices that have been common among most sports teams but specifies them for all athletes and offers the staff a tool to reference when dealing with discipline. While coaches will still be responsible for the discipline of their athletes, the code will provide them more authority and the support of the school.

In the past, GHS athletes have signed a vague anti-drug policy that was not necessarily enforceable because it did not state when or how discipline would be handed down, Daley said.

The new code of conduct changes that.

“You can still question it, but it’s much harder to argue with,” Daley said.

A six-week ineligibility period for students suspended from school for three days or more, regardless of whether the suspension was drug related, has been in place at GHS and is included in the new code of conduct. Students can be suspended from school for more serious infractions such as fighting.

The GHS athletic staff received input from coaches and the administration and looked at precedents set at other schools to develop a “timeline” for dismissing an athlete from a team.

The code also will limit the amount of tardies and absences a student can have and still be allowed to participate in extracurricular activities. If a student accrues five unexcused absences or tardies, he or she will receive a “needs improvement” notice. After two notices, they will be ineligible to participate in their activity.

“Now we will not only look at the academics, at the grades, we will look at the citizenship component,” Daley said. “We want our athletes to be role models and to hold them to a high standard of behavior.”

GHS’s discretionary policy created confusion last year when a coach’s disciplinary action against baseball players suspected of being involved with drugs was overturned. GHS Varsity Baseball Coach Clint Wheeler dismissed four players – three varsity and one junior varsity – following an incident after school hours in which the players and two female students used a duplicate key to gain entry to the dugout and storage area of the baseball field. When Gilroy Police responded to a breaking-and-entering call, they found marijuana paraphernalia on the students, although none were arrested and no report was filed.

“Things would have been a lot clearer as far as exactly what the expectations were,” Diaz said.

GUSD officials are satisfied that they can look at the March incident in hindsight and prevent the situation from occurring again.

“I think that something good is coming out of this,” said Linda Piceno, assistant superintendent of human resources, who used to serve as a principal at a Gilroy middle school. “If the coaches can get together and come up with some definite standards, then I think that that’s something positive.”

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