The following table was created initially by members of the district's Co-Curricular Committee in an attempt to put on paper reasons for and against implementing a no-cut policy in the district's K-12 co-curricular programs. It was hoped that by writing comments any decisions on policy change would be made on the weight of reasoning rather than an appeal to emotions. The table has since been modified by Steve Jefferies in response to additional comments from the public. The views are presented in no particular order of significance.

Opposing a No-Cut Policy	Supporting a No-Cutting Policy
Unnecessary with better advisement and training of instructors. The new statement without any direct reference to cutting clearly describes sound educational practice. If the district provides a good orientation to all of its instructors cutting will in all likelihood not occur.	Process without policy will be ineffective. Agreed that instructors do need better advisement on appropriate educational practices but the absence of a specific policy does not provide better guidance. Furthermore, the entire civil rights movement in this country contradicts this argument. Policy was critical in getting change and ensuring compliance.
In some instances cutting students is the best option. Life involves successes and failures. Preparing students for life involves exposing them to the realities of their own abilities. Realizing that they lack the necessary skills in one area will motivate students to seek alternative activities and perhaps discover a better match of their abilities. Being eliminated in one activity may also motivate students to strive harder in other activities. Michael Jordan was cut from his varsity high school basketball team and it doesn't seem to have hurt him.	Telling a student that they are not good enough to learn is never an appropriate educational practice. One of the main purposes of education is to develop good decision makers. Students should be given the opportunity to decide for themselves if they want to continue participating in an activity in which they lack skill. If they choose not to continue it's their decision. The majority of students who will be cut are those lacking skills, self-confidence, and high self-esteem. These students are at-risk of dropping out or seeking alternative, unhealthy activities. These students are the least likely to rebound from being cut. In education, we prepare students for the real world by limiting their exposure to real world consequences until they have the skills to successfully cope. Michael Jordan was simply put back on the junior varsity. He was never cut from the program. Last year Drew Bledsoe's father (Drew is the New England Patriot quarterback), told a group of local students that one of his son's former high school coaches told Drew that he should consider a different position because he would never make it as a quarterback! Predicting future development is guesswork.
Cutting is a real world experience. It is reality. We live in a competitive world in which we can't all be successful at everything we try. Learning to deal with failure is an important learning experience. If we protect kids from failure are we preparing them for reality? Will they be ready for coping with other real world experiences in which they are exposed to failure? Surely it is better to have them learn to deal with failure as part of their educational experience rather than to pretend that it does not exist. We should be honest with students and not try to conceal realities.	Sometimes we may be tempted to say that this kind of experience (cutting) represents the real world but is this really the kind of worldly experience we as parents would choose to provide for our children. In preparing children for the real world, parents and educators rarely take the path of intentionally exposing unprepared children to real world consequences. Instead, we attempt to prepare children by helping them develop the skills and self-confidence needed to be successful. Much of what parents and educators do is an attempt to protect children from the harmful threats of the real world until they are confident that children have the necessary coping skills. For example, if we as adults cross the street without looking we risk being struck by a car. We protect children from this real world experience by holding their hands, providing crossing guards, and teaching the skills needed to cross streets safely. The adult world has few rules on the use of alcohol or cigarettes, yet society and schools choose to impose rules in an attempt to protect young people from the harmful consequences of substance abuse. (Should we drop non-swimmers in the deep end of the pool and defend this as a real world experience?). Real world experiences can be cruel, painful, and life-threatening even to adults. Choosing to expose children lacking the necessary survival skills, if not a form of abuse, hardly represents a desirable educational experience. Students at this stage of their lives still need to be nurtured and supported not abandoned, labeled as failures, and cut off from their friends. The no-cut policy simply provides students the opportunity to be successful. Whether or not they succeed is largely up to them and the effort they are willing to expend. We would prefer students to see that they are in control of their success rather than at the mercy of the opinion of others
Instructors have a right to cut kids - it should be a personal option not a district policy	Students should come first in all educational experiences. Schools exist for students. Individuals who choose to lead co-curricular activities should follow consistent district-wide policies.
Cutting is often necessary because of limited resources. We have to deal with the real world. Lack of sufficient facilities, instructors, and equipment often make it impossible to offer a quality experience to all students. When instructors have to accept all interested students those who are capable of excelling do not get a fair opportunity.	Eliminating children is an ethical not a financial issue. It is concerned with how students should be treated as people and also addresses the stated purpose of co-curricular activities in an educational environment. Limited resources should not be used to justify an inherently "uneducational" process. Many resources in Ellensburg are not currently being utilized. Not cutting students will not impact on the experience of the higher skilled if properly implemented.
The policy will make little difference if instructors are determined to circumvent the policy.	Agreed. However with a policy in place instructors, students and parents will have clearer direction and reason for recourse if cutting occurs.
Safety reasons may justify cutting students. It would not be safe to include students who are physically immature in environments in which they might be harmed by more mature (heavier, stronger) students.	Instructors do have a responsibility for ensuring safety. This issue however only affects a limited number of co-curricular activities. In these instances safety concerns can be resolved without eliminating students from the activity. Interestingly, coaches in football and wrestling do not cut students.
Failing to cut students will have a negative impact on the performance of the school's representative teams. If all students who turn out for an activity expect to participate on school teams the team's performance will suffer.	The new policy will increase the quality of performance. Greater participation in practice will ensure a broader base for team selection. The new policy strengthens an instructor's ability to field the highest skilled students because it explicitly states that representation for the school will be determined by ability. In other words, everyone is guaranteed the right to learn but not the right to represent the school. Representing the school is the reward for excelling in an activity.
It is more humane to tell students who lack ability that they should seek an alternative activity. Cutting them ensures that they won't waste their time or the instructor's time with false expectations.	Predicting future potential is impossible. Most parents have difficulty assessing or predicting their children's future potential in any area and are constantly surprised at abilities that later emerge. Does it make sense to believe that a coach/advisor who meets our children for a short time at the beginning of an activity is really adequately qualified to decide the child's future potential? There are numerous instances that demonstrate that prediction of future ability is speculative at best and extremely error-prone at worst. While it is possible to assess a student's present ability, no one has the ability to know how that student may develop in the future. In an educational environment, denying a student the opportunity to learn is wrong.
Cutting not only occurs in co-curricular activities but also within the academic curriculum. Students cannot take advanced level math just because they want to. If we had a no cut policy we would not be able to offer the TAG (Talented and gifted) program because all students would have a right to participate. Our advanced level courses would be filled with students who did not have the prerequisite abilities but demanded the right to participate.	Students who lack skills in the classroom generally are provided equitable opportunities to learn in their areas of deficiency. They are not simply excluded from the opportunity to catch up on their deficiencies. Students cut from co-curricular activities do not have any equitable learning opportunity. Intramurals for example, meet once a week and do not involve instruction. While it is true that students have to meet specific criteria to enroll in higher level classes, these criteria are generally: (1) Specific and objective, (2) Known in advance, (3) Applied to all students equally. In contrast cutting in co-curricular activities rarely occurs on the basis on any objective criteria, the criteria are not known in advance so that students can prepare, and cutting occur selectively to individual students who the coach/advisor singles out as lacking potential.
Not being able to cut students places an unfair burden on instructors. Instructors cannot provide quality instruction if forced to deal with an excessively high turnout of students for the activity	This is an administrative issue. The district should ensure that instructors should not face unreasonable instructional expectations. With a no-cut policy it will be the responsibility of the administration to seek out and provide adequate resources for quality instruction.
Cutting is done primarily for budgetary reasons and the limited resource availability. There is little alternative because of jeopardizing student safety	1. The reality is that cutting is not presently occurring because of budgetary reasons although there may perhaps be a perception of limited resources. Proof of this is evident by the fact that none of the instructors who cuts has made an extensive effort to seek alternative assistance from the High School Booster Club, or community resources such as the Athletic, PE, Dance or teacher education programs at CWU. 2. Those instructors who cut are probably not being intentionally deceptive when quoting budgetary reasons. An analogous situation exists regarding exercise. Many people know that cardiovascular disease - the leading cause of death among adults - is closely related to activity levels. In other words, to stay in good health adults should exercise regularly. Most people don't. When asked "Why?" they will usually attribute lack of time as the cause. The reality is that everyone has the same amount of time each day - 24 hours! The real reason is a lack of motivation that puts other activities before exercise. Similarly, we would suggest that instructors who cut simply lack the motivation to avoid cutting.
Even if budgetary factors are not responsible for the present cutting, if we introduce a no-cut policy more students will turn out and then unless we increase the budget we will face resource limitations.	While we can speculate that by removing the fear of being cut, more students will try out for co-curricular activities, we should consider the following: (1) High school students are smart enough to realize that the number of positions in a starting line up in athletics will not change. Most students have an accurate perception of their ability and whether or not they will make the starting line up. It is therefor unlikely that a massive increase in participation will occur. (2) With only a few exceptions the present co-curricular program is already a no-cut program. Football, wrestling, track and many others do not cut. Making a no-cut policy consistent across all activities would not substantially change the present program. It would however, make our policies consistent. We need to ask ourselves why we would want to allow exceptions to a consistent policy. In the classroom, teachers are not allowed - indeed it is illegal - to discriminate on the basis of ability. Teachers have to accept and instruct all students. Why would we want instructors to be able to discriminate on the basis of ability - with no alternative learning opportunity being offered - in an educational environment supported by everyone's tax dollars?
When students do not get selected to play on teams, even if they have been informed of this likelihood beforehand, they often become upset and their discontent can have a negative impact on the entire team. Similarly, parents often become upset if their children do not get to play on teams after attending practices. In short, the goodwill effort to accommodate all students often backfires and detracts from a positive experience for all participants.	Cutting or not cutting is not the root cause of this problem. The real problem is associated with adequate communication between advisors, students, and parents. Cutting students to avoid this problem is comparable to killing patients to prevent the spread of cancer. It is the wrong (and unacceptable) solution to the problem. Students and parents need to understand that a no-cut policy is not an all-play policy. However, it would probably be much easier for them to understand this policy if it were consistent across the program. Presently, with some advisors cutting and some avoiding cutting it is inconsistent and confusing. A second argument against this justification is evident by the fact that many sports currently do not cut, some students have limited participation, and yet the overall atmosphere is positive. For example, in football there is no cutting and yet many students see little game time. This policy is working! The students clearly are choosing to be a part of the program even in the absence of extensive game participation. If the no cut policy is working here (as it is in other sports both outdoors and inside), one has to wonder what is different about other situations that justifies a different policy. If the argument for the benefits of cutting is true then logically it follows all advisors should be cutting so that all students can benefit.
The recent levy (some funds of which are used to support co-curricular activities), was supported and passed based on present policies. It would be inappropriate to change policy now. Many people who voted in support of the levy might have voted differently if this no-cut policy had been in place.	Levy funds will be used to support the Ellensburg School District in many ways - not just co-curricular. It was not a single-issue item. The School Board - as an elected body - is entrusted to implement policy that best serves the educational needs of all children in the district. It is the Board's responsibility to implement changes in policy that best meet the educational mission of the district.
How can we inspire personal excellence if we restrict opportunities for our children to excel? While we need to offer a diverse range of learning opportunities for students, we do not need to ensure that all students can participate in every activity. If they don't have the ability they will hinder the learning of others. It is appropriate for students to participate in activities for which they have ability and Ellensburg offers a wide range of opportunities.	According to the Mission Statement of the Ellensburg School district, the district is committed to (1) providing a safe, nurturing environment, (2) inspiring personal and academic excellence, (3) protecting and respecting the dignity and worth of the individual while recognizing diversity, and (4) promoting lifelong learning to enrich the quality of life. If we are truly committed to achieving this mission how can we justify the humiliating and embarrassing practice of cutting students from learning opportunities? It is not our role to force student choice but to let students make this decision. A no-cut policy simply provides opportunities to learn.
The majority of attendees at the recent public forum were in favor of keeping the present cutting policy. We should respect the opinion of this majority and not implement change.	While the public forum provided members of the public the opportunity to give input to the Board, it can hardly be claimed to represent the views of the entire community. One could similarly argue that the numbers who have expressed opposition to a no-cut policy represent a tiny minority in a community of several thousand. If more people are genuinely concerned about the proposed change in policy why have they not expressed this view? The forum simply provided an opportunity for the airing of views. It should not be viewed as representative of the weight of opinion either for or against a change in policy.
Under Title IX the school district is required to ensure equality exists regarding male and female in our athletic programs. A no-cut policy might risk our compliance with Title IX if more students participate in the program and the balance is unequal.	One of the critical questions asked regarding compliance with Title IX is whether programs are meeting the needs and wants of students. A program in which participation is open to all students is clearly meeting student needs and wants. While we might like to speculate on the impact of a no-cut policy on the participation of males and females, the reality is that there is no basis to assume we would be any more in, or out of compliance with Title IX than we are now.
Cutting based on ability is fair especially if coach/advisors are expected to develop top quality co-curricular programs with existing resources.	If cutting based on ability is viewed as appropriate for students it would seem reasonable to propose a similar policy for coaches and advisors. Would we want to make decisions on hiring and retention based on win-loss records, or on the satisfaction we have about the quality of the experience for the student participants? Cursory examination of performance in several activities based on win-loss or titles would support the need for change. As stated earlier we have to ask whether athletics exists for educational purposes or entertainment. We must not confuse athletic programs offered in schools with professional sports.
Society demands winning and there is little we can do to change this. The community wants to see representative teams from the high school perform well, qualify for playoffs, and win titles.	Is it really true that the whole community demands winning teams? We suspect that the majority of adults in the community are more concerned that children in the district receive a good education in a positive environment. The benefits of this experience will remain long after won-loss records have been forgotten. Of course it is exciting to see our teams win but we need to remember that the co-curricular program does not primarily exist to serve as a form of community entertainment. The co-curricular program is for the students - all students. Quoting from the Position Statement of the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (1993), "The emphasis in interscholastic athletics should be on the educational, moral, and ethical benefits to be derived...The justifiable existence of interscholastic athletics lies in the educational values obtained from them...Any actions or events that distort or overemphasize the appropriate role of athletics in an interscholastic environment diminish their potential as a justifiable educational experience." According to a recent 3-year study representing 285,805 students "High school athletes in North Carolina make higher grades, get into less trouble, graduate at a higher rate, drop out less often, and have higher grade point averages than non-athletes" (Raleigh News and Observer, 4/20/97). "High school girls who play sports are 80% less likely to have an unwanted pregnancy, 92% less likely to be involved with drugs, and three times more likely to graduate from high school." (Institute for Athletics and Education, 1990). "It is absurd that on the one hand we feel that sports are good for kids and on the other hand we set up a system which eliminates poorer performers, girls, late-maturing boys, kids who are not aggressive enough, and so on...Kids come to feel unworthy, unwanted, and unacceptable." (Orlick, 1975).