Olathe Public Schools will no longer offer dance or cheer as middle school electives. The Olathe Board of Education recently voted to axe the classes as part of a major revamp of its elective offerings.
Instead of taking cheer and dance during the school day, middle schoolers will still be able to participate in the activities as an after-school extracurricular.
Parents, teachers and students expressed opposition to the change when it was proposed to the school board last month, with several of them speaking up during the public comments portion of the meeting.
The board ultimately voted 7-0 to approve the changes on Jan. 8.
What’s changing
The district began evaluating middle school electives 18 months ago, the first time since 2010 — before current middle schoolers were born.
District officials said a committee made up of middle school principals, counselors and curriculum coordinators helped inform the changes. The committee also held focus groups and sent email surveys to middle school staff.
Rachelle Waters, assistant superintendent for middle school, said changes are necessary to create consistency across the district’s 10 middle schools and make classes more relevant to today.
“It was very important that we give our students that opportunity to have relevant options that are going to help prepare them for the world that they are going to inherit,” Waters said at the December meeting.
Staffing, licensure, building space and budget considerations were also factors in the district’s decisions.
Why cheer and dance were cut
For cheer and dance, staffing and licensure played the biggest role in the district’s decision.
District officials say most middle school dance and cheer teachers are licensed in other subject areas, and that having them teach more classes in those areas would benefit more students.
“Seven out of our 10 middle schools have cheer dance teachers who currently can only offer four hours of their license content area, rather than all five hours like their grade-level counterparts,” Justin Howe, executive director of human resources, said at last month’s meeting.
Howe said the district considered turning cheer and dance into physical education classes, but that would require additional licensure for the instructors.
The public pushes back
Four people addressed the board at December’s meeting, urging them to keep cheer and dance as an elective.
Marlee Trentham, a freshman at Olathe South, said she was able to participate in cheer in middle school because it was during the school day.
“It meant I didn’t need a ride,” she said. “(I) didn’t have to choose between dance and helping at home or dance and basketball.”
Courtney Brown, who teaches seventh-grade math and cheer at Oregon Trail Middle School, talked about the impact the classes have on the students.
“We are teaching how to work as a team and with people you may not always agree with,” she said, “as well as how to prioritize time, being responsible and positive role models and ambassadors for the school.”
Concerns from the school board
The elective changes will go into effect for the 2026-27 school year — a timeline some board members questioned at January’s meeting.
District staff said they have already reserved 11 days this school year for teachers to work creating curriculum for the new classes.
Director of Instructional Support Kelly Tines said it usually takes six to eight months to develop a new curriculum, giving the district plenty of time before the new school year.
“I’ve heard from a couple teachers the concern about whether or not we are rushing this and trying to get too much done in too short of a time,” Tines said. “And one of the things I’ve shared with teachers is that while it seems that way, this is pretty much the process that we use anytime that we’re revising a class or creating a new class.”
Each of the 15 new classes have an independent group of teachers working on the curriculum.
Tines said that if the district and teacher groups are unable to finish the work by the end of the current school year, they would consider pushing the changes back a year.
The process for transitioning cheer and dance from electives to extracurricular activities will follow a slightly different path, but district staff said work has already begun.
The first step was updating job descriptions for coaches to reflect additional hours. The district will also need to determine supplemental pay for the positions.
A committee made up of a cheer or dance coach from every middle school and five middle school principals will meet to guide the transition from a class to an after school activity to ensure consistency across the district.
Other changes
Other changes to the elective offerings are retiring some classes like “Career & Life Planning and Intro to Apparel Production,” “Flight and Space,” and “Communications Multi-Media.”
New options for middle schoolers include “Media Makers,” a class where students learn about “responsible social media and AI use, graphic design and podcasting.”
The board approved the changes 7-0.
“I recognize, we recognize change is difficult, especially when we think things are going great, going well and why do need to upset what we’ve already got going,” Board President Stacey Yurkovich said. “But here’s the thing. We can be better.”
