On August 6, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu presented Florence K-8 with a check for $1,500 from Rico Funds to support Florence K-8 Athletics. This money will be used to provide scholarships for students who cannot afford the fee to participate.
According to District officials, this donation will help keep the students off the streets and will help them stay drug and alcohol free. For the past 4 years, Sheriff Babeu has shown his support by donating money for the program.
Superintendent Dr. Fuller said, “Sheriff Babeu supports education through and through. He has stepped up countless times for the Florence Unified School District and has done an incredible job of partnering with us to ensure the safety of our students and community. We are humbled by his generosity and extremely grateful for his donation.”
A study from the University of Kansas, reported in The Atlantic, found that if you give a student “a reason to come to school — even if that reason has nothing to do with academics,” they will likely stay in school. The Atlantic reported, “University of Kansas’s Angela Lumpkin and Rebecca Achen analyzed high-school testing, graduation, and attendance data and found that Kansas’s student athletes go to school more often than non-athletes. They also have higher graduation rates: 98 percent of athletes in Kansas’s class of 2012 graduated, compared with 90 percent of non-athletes.”
“The higher graduation rates could be explained away by the theory that teachers have lower standards for athletes—that they’re willing to let athletes pass without doing all the work,” reported The Atlantic. “But state test data challenges that theory: Athletes also score higher on the Kansas state assessments than non-athletes, in all subject areas. They are clearly learning something in their classes.”
In the Sunnyside Unified School District, student advocate and former college track coach, Richard Hernandez, successfully encouraged the Board to change district policy to require that student athletes must pass all classes in order to be able to participate in school sports. Hernandez said of the policy, “I am proud of our Board for their decision. Our kids can meet our expectations. We need to believe in them. We need to provide the opportunities, and offer them tutors, and mentors and they will achieve amazing things when the community believes in them and supports them.”