This year, a new special SRT for student-athletes has been introduced to ensure that they are academically eligible for competing at the next level. Briana “Bri” Arnold, softball player and senior, who wants to play softball in college, takes advantage of this SRT with help from English teacher Kimberly Walker.

“Mrs. Walker makes sure our grades are always up and we’re eligible to play every year,” Arnold said. “It helps me a lot because last year nobody was there to really support me and I wasn’t allowed to play the first few games of the season.”

Walker was previously a coach and assistant athletics director. She volunteered to oversee the SRT.

“During my time as an assistant athletics director, my focus was on academics. I directed and founded a program when I was an athletics director and I worked with athletes strictly to improve their grades, so that’s just where my passion is,” Walker said.

The SRT was approved by Principal John Williams and Athletics director Jim Inskeep. According to Assistant Athletics director Bruce Wolf, this has been a concept that has been talked about for quite a while.

The reason for implying such an SRT, according to Wolf, was because of the NCAA eligibility requirements.

“The NCAA eligibility requirements have changed quite a bit the last three to five years and they are kind of complex,” Wolf said. “They have become significantly tougher, most would say, including some requirements that affect kids’ curricular choices as freshmen or sophomores, where a lot of kids in freshmen or sophomore (years) aren’t even thinking about being college athletes or not. In an effort to try and help kids make good choices in the hopes that they might become NCAA athletes, we thought it might make sense that kids could go into, and that was the purpose of the SRT to keep track of those requirements.”

Because of this SRT, Arnold said she is in a prime position to play softball in college.

“My grades are so much higher this year. Everything’s looking good for me to play sports in college,” Arnold said.

Even though Arnold has increased her GPA, the SRT isn’t all about improving grades, according to Walker. It is more about keeping grades consistent.

According to Walker, the students are in the special SRT for numerous reasons.

“These are hand picked athletes (selected) by their coaches and/or the athletic department that are students who are in here for a variety of reasons,” Walker said. “Some (are here because) they need that extra push to help them maintain their grades in order to become academically eligible. Some are in here because they are academically eligible and maintain very high grades but they just need a sheltered environment where someone is able to monitor their grades.”

As of now, Walker only has 18 students in her SRT all from different sports and grades.

“Right now it’s completely manageable during SRT, but in the future I definitely see it growing and continuing to be successful for the students and that’s why I’m doing it, to make sure the kids are succeeding,” Walker said.

Walker also stated she’s seen improvement, and this SRT is proving to be helpful.

“It’s usually not overnight improvements,” Walker said, “but quarter one, when we did our first grade check, to the end of quarter two, I had some students with significant improvements.”

If the students in the SRT continue to improve academically, , the school may add more student-athlete SRTs.

“As it grows, the possibilities are endless,” Wolf said. It can grow into after school study tables. It can grow into a sheltered study hall or supported study hall, but right now it’s manageable and we’re seeing success and I can only hope it can grow and builds itself into getting bigger and having student-athletes benefit from (it).”