The majority of students at Powell Middle School and Powell High School like to be involved. Whether it be in clubs or sports Powell students are finding their place and likely even boosting their GPAs in the process.

A correlation exists between students who participate in sports and activities and perform well academically, Powell High School Activities/Athletics Director Richard Despain said at a June school board meeting.

“They strive to keep the class work up so that they’re able to be involved,” he added.

Data showed that at Powell High School an average of 10.8 students per week who participated in sports and activities had an F and an average of 1.6 students per week had two F’s. An average of 91.4 students per week who did not participate in school sports or activities had one or more F.

“It’s a carrot for them to get that credit back,” Despain said. “Keep them on track for graduation as well.”

Data from Powell Middle shows that the GPA of students who are involved in school or in the community have higher GPAs. For example, the cumulative GPA of eighth grade students who were not involved was 2.52 — if they were involved in community activities the cumulative GPA was 2.94 and if they were involved in school sports or activities the cumulative GPA was 3.28.

At Powell Middle 93% of all students are involved in at least one school-sponsored sport or activity, or community activity. The school has also had success with clubs including a fly fishing club, chess club and robotics. Most recently they added a Rubik’s Cube club. 

At Powell High 67% of students were involved, which comes out to 405 students of the 605 enrolled.

This year several clubs were added including a Junior ROTC club, an esports club and Project Unify. Only Wyoming High School Activities Association sanctioned sports and activities are included in the high school data, Despain said. This excludes about 30 students involved in the newly created clubs and other activities, who if included would put the percentage of students involved in a sport or activity in the 70’s.

This year’s total participation is 7% lower than last year’s which continues a small downward trend in participation numbers. Despain said while talking to other athletics/activities directors it appears to be harder to get students involved in athletics, so he’s thankful for some of the other opportunities offered to students.

Moving forward both schools are aiming to increase their participant numbers with Powell High eyeing 80% and Powell Middle School hoping to have 95% of students involved in an activity. 

“We just love that we’re kind of finding all those niches of kids and it’s just another way to keep kids around and connect with kids, and learn from them,” Rohrer said. “To be quite honest I’m blown away [by] what some of those kids can do that I wouldn’t stand a chance at.”