Education Law

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BoardBuzz has always been on the lookout to see how students are staying active and what opportunities schools offer for physical education. We covered before the upcoming skateboarding trend, but now it looks like another unique sport is hitting some schools... Double Dutch!

The New York Times reported that next spring some New York City schools will be adding the well-known jumping rope game to their list of varsity sports. The ultimate goal is to get more students participating in competitive sports, and the long-standing jump-roping activity seemed like a great addition.

?As an urban district, we need to be creative in an urban kind of way, and double dutch does that for us,? said Eric Goldstein, who oversees the Public Schools Athletic League, the governing body for the city?s interscholastic sports. ?If you see people doing it, it looks hard and it is hard.?

Kyra D. Gaunt, who wrote ?The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to Hip-Hop? (N.Y.U. Press, 2006), said that recognizing double dutch as a sport not only taps into something that many children are passionate about, but also gives a nod to the influence of black culture. ?They?re helping to regenerate a tradition in the black community and legitimize it in the eyes of a lot of parents,? she said.

Double Dutch has been played in neighborhoods and on playgrounds for years intramurally. School district officials plan to develop standard rules and scoring guidelines so that students can compete interscholastically. Besides spinning the ropes and learning jumping tricks, these students will spend time running and lifting weights to build muscles.

It seems like school communities are excited to start, and the city plans to start co-ed teams at ten high schools. BoardBuzz wishes them luck for their first seasons next spring, and can't wait to hear how it ends up!

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on July 31, 2008 (boomark / email).