Value of

good health, collaboration, fun, and building relationships

Guidelines for Play

Parker's athletic program is, most importantly, where students learn the value of good health, collaboration, fun, and building relationships. The athletic program provides opportunities for instruction, participation, and growth and strives to promote healthy competition characterized by sportsmanship and teamwork. Athletics at Parker enhances the academic experience and, while fostering respectful relationships among the students, strengthens the community. Students are encouraged to strive to compete at the highest level their ability and performance will allow. Accordingly, Parker provides varied levels of competition for each athlete. These goals of the athletic program relate to the following common principles of the Coalition of Essential Schools: requiring students to demonstrate mastery through exhibition, personalizing teaching and learning, emphasizing depth over breadth, embracing the metaphor "student as worker, teacher as coach," stressing un-anxious expectation, trust and decency, considering teachers as generalists with a commitment to the entire school, and modeling democratic and equitable practices.

As a community, we meet the challenges of our athletic philosophy through the cultivation of the following values:

• A commitment to age- and skill-appropriate coaching and competition at every level;
• A commitment to achieving individual and team goals;
• A commitment to diligent preparation, fair play, and self-discipline;
• A commitment to exercise and competition that contributes to the development of an athlete's mental, emotional, and physical well-being.