OP, it's best to step out your front door and find parents who know. Know your school. Know the coach.

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know how fast one needs to be able to run in order to participate in meets in FCPS HS?

Depends on the school. If you are at one of the above mentioned schools- the top 10 girls are finishing under 21 minutes (some of the best runners last year were freshman) and then there is a large group finishing under 23 minutes.

Boys top 30 are finishing under 17 minutes.

You can look up results on milesplit

When my fcps kid ran XC last Fall, there were Freshman, JV and Varsity divisions. Invitational meets were on weekends - often far away, and regular meets closer to home were on week days. The coach seemed to slot in kids based on times and other factors. Sometimes my kid ran in a JV division and other times as a freshman. He did more invitationals then regular meets, and was a decent runner but plenty of freshman had faster times.

I think coach had an overarching strategy that involved using the best runners for varsity division invitationals, resting them when needed, slotting in kids who were showing big improvement even if not fastest, and making sure everyone got a chance to run in meets.

Does anyone know how fast one needs to be able to run in order to participate in meets in FCPS HS?

Man, you guys who refer to some of the XC kids as non-athletes- that’s harsh.
If a kid is running in the heat of August every weekday, every day after school, participating in meets, and supporting their teammates- they are athletes in my book.

If they're capping the team at 40, I can only imagine it's because the runners after #40 aren't fully motivated. If a kid was #42 but still working really hard and trying to improve, I'd be really sad to cut them.

there are several high schools in Fairfax County that have really strong running programs. (south lakes, woodson, west springfield, robinson, chantilly, etc...)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our HS is changing the XC policy and this year will limit the team to the fastest 40 girls and 40 boys based on time trials that happen the first week in August.

At my kid’s HS, that would effectively be no-cut. I don’t know if there are 40 boys, but there are nowhere near 40 girls.

Same, I want to know more about PP's school.

My kid's school has a struggling program, and there's no way this coach could get 40 boys OR 40 girls to show up. (We are not in NOVA.)

Anonymous wrote:Our HS is changing the XC policy and this year will limit the team to the fastest 40 girls and 40 boys based on time trials that happen the first week in August.

At my kid’s HS, that would effectively be no-cut. I don’t know if there are 40 boys, but there are nowhere near 40 girls.

i think it is totally fair to say- you can be on the XC team if you can run a mile in X time. If they can't run it in that time- then they don't make the minimum standard for the team. Easy peasy.

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Anonymous wrote:Our HS is changing the XC policy and this year will limit the team to the fastest 40 girls and 40 boys based on time trials that happen the first week in August.

Thats a bummer. There arent really other no cut sports (besides football which is problematic)

That sucks. I wonder how they keep the balance between boys and girls with football being a no cut sport for boys and girls not having an equivalent

Girls have field hockey and volleyball in the fall

Both of which have huge cuts. This seems like the kind of thing where a determined parent could get the policy changed back if they pushed the principal and their school board rep

But isn't it different by school?

I know one school near us has recently had to start cutting JV football but field hocked was no cuts.

And our school had to cut over 50% of the kids trying out for JV baseball, but our neighboring HS could barely field a JV team.

I didn't think it was that certain sports were just deemed "no-cut" and it was more about how many kids tried about vs the roster limits. And football just has a high roster limit.

XC has always been no cut at our school and so has football. The football roster is absurdly large and the cross country team has an excess of un-athletic girls. If XC because cut and football didn't follow suit, the principal would need a reason for the different treatment of boys and girls who just wanted to play a sport. It's probably not a title ix issue (unless the xc team shrinks far enough), but it might be a civil rights issue under county regulation. If nothing else, it would be a lot of paperwork and a lot easier to just find a new xc coach

we have been told it is coaches choice if it is cut vs no cut. Track has always been cut so now XC is too.

The coach doesn't make money based on the number of participants so good for the coach for limiting the numbers.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our HS is changing the XC policy and this year will limit the team to the fastest 40 girls and 40 boys based on time trials that happen the first week in August.

Thats a bummer. There arent really other no cut sports (besides football which is problematic)

That sucks. I wonder how they keep the balance between boys and girls with football being a no cut sport for boys and girls not having an equivalent

Girls have field hockey and volleyball in the fall

Both of which have huge cuts. This seems like the kind of thing where a determined parent could get the policy changed back if they pushed the principal and their school board rep

But isn't it different by school?

I know one school near us has recently had to start cutting JV football but field hocked was no cuts.

And our school had to cut over 50% of the kids trying out for JV baseball, but our neighboring HS could barely field a JV team.

I didn't think it was that certain sports were just deemed "no-cut" and it was more about how many kids tried about vs the roster limits. And football just has a high roster limit.

Anonymous wrote:Do they have to be equal? I am confused as to why XC should allow a bunch of non-athletic kids to be on a sports team?

If the school wants to treat boys and girls differently, they should be prepared to answer questions. I'd assume that most principals and regional superintendents do not care about cross country enough to back the coach especially if every other XC team in the district is no cut.

Do they have to be equal? I am confused as to why XC should allow a bunch of non-athletic kids to be on a sports team?