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People Are Divided Over This High School’s New ‘Inclusion’ Policy For Their Cheerleading Squad

Trying out for school teams is apart of many adolescents’ lives when it comes to growing up.
Whether it’s for a sports team like basketball or cheerleading, or an academic team like mathletes or the debate team–tryouts are a great way for young people to learn the value of hard work and dedication. However, not all students and kids “make the team.” In fact, many don’t. The process, however, usually inspires them to work harder and try again next year.

This, however, is no longer the case for high school students in New Jersey. One school is now issuing an “inclusion policy” for their cheerleading team after a parent complained about her child not making the squad.

Now, for students at Hanover Park High School, if you decide to try out for the cheerleading squad–you automatically get a place on the team. There are two levels of cheer teams–one for 9th and 10th graders, and another for 11th and 12th graders. After parents complained of the cheerleading tryouts as being “unfair,” the school decided to allow just about anyone to join the team.

The school’s Superintendent told BuzzFeed News:

Our goal in doing so was to include more opportunities for those who want to be on the squad. We had a shortage of members on the team, so our goal was to get more participants onto the team for a full squad.

However, other students and parents do not see it that way. Many cheerleaders practice for months, even years, to make it onto the cheerleading squad. The outraged community members attended a Board of Education meeting to protest the new inclusion rule. Some students were in tears over how their hard work has now gone out the window.

Stephanie Krueger was in tears when she told the board:

“I tried my hardest. Now everything is going away because of one child who did not make the team. Their parent complained so now all my hard work has been thrown out the window.”

In my honest opinion, if you’re going to make one team “inclusive to all,” then every team in the school should be “inclusive.” It’s unjust to make only a girl’s team inclusive in order to make sure student’s feelings aren’t hurt. I don’t think that any football coaches, basketball coaches, or baseball coaches would be okay if the high school decided to let everyone on the team–right? It’s unfair to single out one team in the entire school, without issuing the rule across the board.

On Twitter, people have shared in the outrage and said it’s unfair.

Other people didn’t see it as such a big deal.

What do you think–is allowing everyone to make the team a good idea or a bad idea?