Over the past few years, the Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City cheerleading team from Grove City, MN has become a well-known presence at both state and national competitive cheerleading competitions. However, despite this level of success, as well as the team’s dedication to tumbling instructions and practices, they are a self-funded activity in their school district. Fortunately, this is about to change: after several lengthy discussions at community meetings, the ACGC school board has decided to reinstate cheerleading as a school-sponsored activity for the 2015-2016 school year.
While private cheerleading coaches and teams are an important resource for many children, the ACGC team’s new status will mean that they will receive financial support from the school district. Currently, the team is expected to received between $4,200 and $4,600 during the coming school year, which the team will use to cover its uniforms, cheerleading coaching and travel expenses. Unfortunately, because the state and national competitions are not sponsored by the Minnesota State High School League, the team will still need to fund its own expenses if it wants to participate in these events.
Another exciting result of the new decision is that the ACGC cheerleader will now be allowed to letter during the school year. As a result, the team was reinstated as a sideline cheerleading squad and will perform at the district’s basketball, wrestling and football games. Now that coaching is covered by the district, there’s no doubt that the team will put in their time focusing on their tumbling instructions in anticipation of these events.
Currently, the team says that around seven girls have expressed interest in the new squad, an important sign, as some school board members were unsure if enough students were interested in the sport to warrant reinstating the team. The issue has been discussed since February, when the team and their coach first presented their views on the issue. Now, it remains to be seen how the ACGC team will handle the switch from private to school squad: only their performance at the coming year’s cheerleading competitions will tell.
