FARMINGTON — Twenty SAD 9 students whose fourth-quarter grades make them ineligible for fall sports can take summer school to regain their eligibility. The board of directors Tuesday night effectively waived a portion of the eligibility policy that prevented students from using summer school to become eligible for fall sports.

“This is not free card for everybody,” said Richard Fernald, chairman of the school board. Each applicant will have to request the waiver specifically.

The board voted to grant the waiver to Eric Westgate, a ninth-grade student from New Sharon who had failed one course when school closed this year. Even though Westgate’s enrollment in summer school could result in a passing grade for the failed course, the board’s policy would not have allowed him to participate in extracurricular non-credit activities when school reopens in the fall.

Westgate asked District Superintendent Lawson A. Rutherford to allow him to use summer school to regain eligibility, but Rutherford refused. “What I did was enforce the (school board’s) policy,” said Rutherford, who added that, philosophically, he does not support tying sports eligibility to academic standings.

Rutherford said that when the district policy book was reviewed in 1988, he approached various administrators in the district in an attempt to separate academics from sports eligibility. However, the administrators felt that most of their teachers supported the existing policy. Rutherford also said that an informal poll he had conducted last week showed “strong feeling in SAD 9 for eligibility based on academic accomplishment,”

Thomas Ward, principal at Mount Blue High School, agreed. “The major reason for not allowing (eligibility based on) summer school comes from the high school staff. They feel very strongly (that) what’s fair for winter and spring activities should be the same for the fall.”

According to the policy, students who earn a failing grade during one of the first three academic quarters are ineligible for sports during the following quarter. But with the waiver, students who fail a course in the fourth quarter may regain eligibility for the fall if they are successful in summer school.

He said also that some teachers feel summer school is not tough enough, “(but) I don’t really agree with that.” Each summer school course requires 60 hours of class time, equivalent to two quarters of normal school time. Also, the summer school grade is averaged into the grade earned during the academic year to determine whether the student ultimately passes the course.

Only two directors favored maintaining the eligibility policy, saying the change offered an unfair advantage to students who failed in the fourth quarter.

But Mamie McCall, a director from Wilton, called summer school an opportunity for students at risk of dropping out of school. She said that it was unfair to keep a student out of sports who had trouble passing a single subject. Lillian Lake, another director from Wilton, agreed with McCall. “The value of sports … is understated. If it opens a can of worms, so be it,” Lake said of the possibility that a large number of students would request the waiver.

Paul Brown, coordinator of the summer school program, said Wednesday morning that some ineligible students could not be helped because the course they had failed was not being offered. He said that he, Ward and District Athletic Director Randy Cook had called about 20 junior high and high school students and offered them an opportunity to enroll in summer school, which started Monday. “I’d be surprised if more than two show up,” Brown said.