27% of Hispanic & 25% of black students

Gazette: Many of county's blacks, Hispanics ineligible for after-school activities

Administrators examining the problem, official says

by Marcus Moore | Staff Writer

...The numbers are stark. Last year, 27 percent of the county's Hispanic high school students were chronically ineligible for extracurricular activities, while 25 percent of black high school students were chronically ineligible, according to the report...

...Typically, students shut out from extracurricular activities are "going to be in the streets," said Yvette Butler, chairwoman of the county NAACP Parents' Council. "If you don't have someplace for children to release energy, you're going to have to do something with them; otherwise, they'll go down that wrong path...

...While school administrators want to lower the ineligibility rates even further, "each school has to address ineligibility in their own unique ways," Talley said...