[Gary B.]

In our school, sports and the arts programs still reign supreme in the extra curricular activities realm. But with that said, this will be the third year that some members (those with at least two years of solid participation) will receive letters. The letters were actually a by-product of a fundamental change that the school accepted three years ago regarding our team and the other academic teams present in the school. The key word here is teams. Up until this time, our team and the other teams (e.g. speech and debate, mock trial, academic decathalon, mathletes, etc.) were treated as clubs. The status change was the result of a concerted effort to try elevate the "status" of the academic teams in order to compete with sports and arts programs. We're not quite on par yet. But, we are working on it. So, my suggestion here is it may help you out if you can develop some stategic allies to work with in order to achieve your goal. There is power in numbers.