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Starting with the 2022-23 school year, eighth-graders will for the first time be allowed to participate in high school athletics in Albuquerque Public Schools, the Journal has learned.
“There were a lot of factors,” APS district athletic director Adrian Ortega said Thursday. “Most important to me, APS middle schools do not offer a wide variety of extracurricular activities. It’s just three sports (volleyball, basketball, track). My belief is that in order to keep our kids off the streets and getting into trouble, we have to allow them to have as many opportunities to compete in extracurricular activities as possible.”
Ortega, who took over in December, said a committee was created to examine the eighth-grade issue. Their recommendation was presented to Dr. Gabriella Blakey, APS’ Chief Operations Officer, and that in turn was presented to an APS cabinet of administrators that signed off on this Wednesday.
There are some conditions attached going forward.
If an eighth-grader wishes to play at the high school level, he or she must first be processed by the school and receive approval from the New Mexico Activities Association. Grades from the spring semester of their seventh-grade school year (in other words, this semester) will be used to determine eligibility.
Moreover, athletes must play for the school in their home attendance zone as an eighth-grader. If any boy or girl chooses to bypass middle school athletics for the chance to compete at the high school level, he or she will forfeit the open enrollment choice afforded to freshmen.
For example, if athletes play at one high school as an eighth grader but wish to transfer to another as a ninth grader, they’ll be primarily restricted to sub-varsity action until they become sophomores – in keeping with NMAA policy.
If athletes choose to continue with middle school athletics, they retain the power to open enroll at any APS high school as a freshman.
NMAA executive director Sally Marquez, in a telephone interview from Atlanta, said “APS was the last one holding out that could have eighth-graders play up.”
Each school and/or district fashions its own rules as it pertains to eighth-graders, Marquez said.
“If member schools want eighth-graders to participate, it’s a local choice,” Marquez said.
Some allow them to play in a sport that is not offered at their middle school. Some allow eighth graders to participate, but only after their middle school season ends. Some prefer to allow them only if they are talented enough to compete at the varsity level.
Eighth-graders have been competing at the high school level for many years in other cities and in other districts.
Just in the metro area, Rio Rancho, Cleveland, Los Lunas, Valencia and Belen are public schools that permit eighth-graders to be involved with high school-level sports. Most of the private schools in the area (St. Pius is an exception) also allow this.
Rio Rancho and Cleveland, in particular their powerhouse – and multiple state champion – wrestling programs, have benefited from eighth-graders contributing heavily at the varsity level.
The existing policy in Rio Rancho is that eighth-graders only will be used if they are JV or varsity caliber, district AD Bruce Carver said.
There should be other benefits for APS, Ortega said, like some schools being able to add athletes at the C-Team and JV levels. For as large as Atrisco Heritage is, and it’s one of the top five in enrollment in New Mexico, it doesn’t even have a JV baseball team. Schools where enrollment numbers are down, like Highland, could see a nice boost.
“I think this will affect primarily a lot of lower enrollment schools,” Ortega said, adding that he wants to improve and bolster APS’ middle school sports.
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