A Columbus teen’s yearlong request to play highschool baseball whereas attending an arts faculty may very well be determined this month.
Rene Rodriguez IV, a 16-year-old junior at Rainey-McCullers Faculty of the Arts, and his mother and father need the Muscogee County Faculty District Board to permit him to play baseball on the crew at Hardaway Excessive Faculty. He resides in Hardaway’s attendance zone, so he may very well be a pupil there if he did not attend Rainey-McCullers, a magnet faculty for grades 6-12 that does not supply baseball among the many sports activities it began this faculty 12 months.
A Georgia Excessive Faculty Affiliation bylaw permits for such permission to be granted, nevertheless it have to be accepted by the native faculty board.
The MCSD board is scheduled to debate the problem throughout its Feb. 13 work session, beginning at 5 pm. The board may vote on the request throughout its subsequent assembly, Feb. 21, beginning at 6 pm
Now that top faculty baseball season started final week in Georgia, Rene hopes his window of alternative does not shut.
“Highschool is a really valuable time,” Rene informed the Ledger-Enquirer. “You solely get 4 years, and also you solely get one shot at it. And when you’re not doing it to the complete proportion of the way in which you wish to do it, you are gonna look again and remorse it. My complete factor right here is we be sure that these regrets do not occur.”
‘I fell in love with the varsity’
Throughout his elementary faculty years, Rene performed T-ball, soccer, basketball and soccer in recreation leagues. Whereas attending Blackmon Street Center Faculty, he chosen Rainey-McCullers for highschool as a result of he’s obsessed with enjoying guitar.
“I fell in love with the varsity,” he mentioned. “It is a very good faculty. The academics there are wonderful. The college is prime notch.”
Rene knew Rainey-McCullers did not supply interscholastic sports activities then.
“I did not see myself enjoying athletics,” he mentioned. “… However as you develop, you are going to change over time.”
The scholar’s father, Rene Rodriguez III, informed the LE, “He is undoubtedly not the identical child when he made that call in eighth grade. These children discover themselves in highschool. Hey modified. He discovered a love for a sport, however he additionally has a love for music.”
In January 2022, their preliminary inquiry about Rene presumably enjoying baseball at Carver, the highschool nearest Rainey-McCullers, was nixed in a telephone dialog with MCSD athletics director Jeff Battles — and resulted in pondering “no choices exist to permit for this case, Rodriguez mentioned.
On the finish of his sophomore 12 months, Rene began enjoying baseball within the West Georgia Dixie rec league. His curiosity and proficiency elevated as a primary baseman and outfielder, and he joined the Rip Metropolis Pirates journey ball crew.
Final summer season, Rene labored at a concession stand in Golden Park, the place the Columbus Chatt-a-Hoots play within the collegiate Sunbelt Baseball League. The expertise prompted Rene to take enjoying baseball extra severely, occupied with the potential of incomes a university scholarship.
Rene and his mother and father learn the GHSA bylaws and located a rule that enables college students who attend a magnet faculty to take part in extracurricular actions on the faculty the place they reside within the attendance zone — so long as the varsity board approves.
“We’re attempting to get entry to extra alternatives and scholarships for not simply myself however children throughout Rainey-McCullers,” Rene mentioned.
Some sports activities, however not baseball
At the start of this faculty 12 months, Rainey-McCullers established interscholastic sports activities groups for cross nation, golf, swimming/diving and tennis. Solely these sports activities have been allowed, MCSD superintendent David Lewis informed the LE in an e mail as a result of they’re “extra individually based mostly and coached by members of their workers and are due to this fact not depending on the schedules of a number of coaches of crew sports activities from the eight different excessive faculties.”
In November, Rene’s mom, Lindsay Woodson, emailed Hardaway athletics director Kendall Mills and requested her son be allowed to play baseball on that crew. Battles replied on behalf of Mills and instructed that Rene contemplate enjoying one of many sports activities Rainey-McCullers provides.
Rene, nonetheless, desires to play highschool baseball. So his mother and father offered their case to the varsity board on the December assembly. As a result of their presentation was in the course of the public agenda portion of the assembly — and never on the motion agenda — the board did not vote on the request or talk about the problem on the assembly.
Jan 9, when Rene’s mother and father noticed their request wasn’t on the agenda for that month’s assembly, they referred to as board chairwoman Pat Hugley Inexperienced of District 1. They have been informed the right process would have been to ask a board member to place the request on the motion agenda as an alternative of addressing the board in the course of the public agenda, Rodriguez mentioned.
Inexperienced promised “to assist transfer the initiative alongside” and to ask the superintendent to “collect the required info to current to the board for assessment,” Rodriguez mentioned.
Jan 12, Rene’s mother and father met with Lewis in his workplace. The superintendent informed them he opposes their request.
“He then cited that he didn’t wish to disrupt the ‘tribe mentality’ on the faculty,” Rodriguez mentioned, “saying that he felt introducing sports activities on the faculty would upset college students and alter the cultural dynamics on the faculty. He then referenced his must not upset the (Rainey-McCullers) Basis members by bringing sports activities to the varsity because it was not a part of the unique imaginative and prescient of the muse members.”
Additionally on Jan. 12, board vice chairwoman of District 5 Laurie McRae informed Rene’s mother and father in an e mail, “I feel it must be addressed/mentioned publicly, particularly after their asking in the course of the public agenda. I too wish to higher perceive the coverage and what boundaries, if any, there are to altering it.”
Jan 30, Rodriguez mentioned, he found new verbiage within the Rainey-McCullers admissions coverage on the faculty’s web site. He mentioned he used Google’s cache service to seek out the assertion saying college students waive their rights to request to play sports activities at their zoned faculty wasn’t there as just lately as Jan. 9.
MCSD response
The LE requested MCSD communications director Kimberly Wright on Friday for the varsity district’s response to Rodriguez’s allegation that the Rainey-McCullers admissions coverage was modified on the web site. This story will probably be up to date along with her reply when it’s obtained.
Since Jan. 31, the LE has requested Wright a number of instances for MCSD to make an official accessible to clarify on digicam for the video accompanying this story why Rene’s request hasn’t been granted. The LE additionally requested a number of instances for a duplicate of the district’s coverage that governs this case.
As an alternative, on Feb. 8, Wright emailed the LE a press release from Lewis.
The superintendent famous, when planning for the humanities faculty began in 2006, crew sports activities weren’t included within the programming “because of the inherent conflicts that will inevitably come up between after-school, night and weekend arts-related actions of a mature arts faculty and the athletic practices and contests of eight different district excessive faculties that every one supply arts programming as effectively.”
Along with the varsity board approving the plan, Lewis mentioned, it was a part of selling the Training Particular Objective Native Possibility Gross sales Tax that Columbus voters accepted in 2015 to assist fund building of the humanities faculty.
“Our district is an avid supporter of each athletics and the humanities, however given the preliminary imaginative and prescient for the varsity and the inevitable scheduling conflicts that will come up, college students should select to attend the Rainey-McCullers SOTA for what it provides or to attend a complete highschool that gives the humanities and interscholastic sports activities which might be accessible at their zoned highschool,” Lewis wrote.
‘Battling some political points’
Woodson praised the schooling her son receives at Rainey-McCullers, however she does not assume the district’s administration is offering him an equal alternative to be well-rounded.
“The varsity is wonderful,” Woodson, a gross sales and compensation analyst at Aflac, informed the LE. “What I really feel like we’re battling is a few political points. I really feel like we’re battling among the unique founders of what Rainey was alleged to be about.”
Rodriguez, an engineer at TSYS, added, “Now we have to alter with the instances. If the scholars are saying we wish these alternatives to be accessible to us, it is not forcing sports activities onto the scholars.”
Woodson mentioned she is aware of a number of mother and father whose kids have been serious about attending Rainey-McCullers however selected to go elsewhere as a result of the varsity did not supply their sport and others whose kids transferred out of Rainey-McCullers once they wished to play a highschool sport.
“We’re preventing a battle that hopefully folks behind us won’t ever must combat,” Woodson mentioned.
Whatever the final result, Rene’s mother and father see their son studying classes by this dispute that can assist him have the grit and beauty essential to persevere by different robust instances.
“As a mother, I could not be extra proud,” Woodson mentioned. “It makes me really feel like we did one thing proper alongside the way in which for him to be this snug to speak about it. … He’s actually advocating for this, and we again him up 100%.”
Rene appreciates his mother and father’ help.
“It simply makes me really feel actually grateful and actually grateful that I’ve mother and father who will advocate for me like this,” he mentioned.
Requested whether or not they contacted any legal professionals to contemplate submitting a lawsuit relating to their trigger, Rodriguez mentioned, “We do not wish to go to that degree, nevertheless it’s undoubtedly an possibility.”