Middle-school boys and girls in some low-performing schools on Oahu and Hawaii island next fall will begin playing in small, after-school sports leagues as part of a larger effort to improve the lives of 3,700 students.

There will be no tryouts and no cuts for the football, basketball, volleyball and soccer teams in the public school complex areas, which include Waianae Intermediate and Nanakuli High and Intermediate on Oahu; and Kau High and Pahala Elementary (a K-12 school), Keaau Middle School and Pahoa High and Intermediate on Hawaii island.

The emphasis will be on participation and not on winning, said Keith Amemiya, a state Board of Education member and former executive director of the Hawaii High School Athletic Association. He said he has dreamed of creating an after-school sports program for middle school students for years.

The $807,000 cost for the three-year, pilot program will come entirely from donations, Amemiya said.

To play on the teams, students must maintain a 2.0 grade point average and attend a year-round, academic-based, after-school program called After-School All-Stars, Amemiya said. When not practicing for or playing their sport, the students have to attend the academic program.

"The middle school years are just as critical, if not even more important, than the high school years in making sure our students are appropriately engaged and involved in after-school activities," Amemiya said. "Those are very formative and critical years in which those students change physically and emotionally. If you lose some of those kids, they may go down the wrong path. By the time they reach high school, it’s difficult to get them back on the right track."

Many details have to be worked out. But Raymond Fujino, the Department of Education’s interim athletics administrative officer, said athletes might be picked for each game or match based on how well they did in the academic program.

"Maybe the 12 best who did in the classroom will get to play next time," Fujino said. "Playing could be a reward for the strides and gains they make in the classroom. It’s not strictly for winning championships. Hopefully, it’s motivational."

The After-School All-Stars program for the two school complex areas would be much more than glorified study halls, Amemiya said.

They would be run by teachers providing classroom-style instruction, not just monitoring homework, he said.

And there would be social service workers, psychologists and even medical professionals to provide the students with help they may not be receiving at home, Amemiya said.

"A lot of these kids don’t go to the doctor regularly, so we’ll bring health-care professionals and counselors to them and offer everything from birth certificates to Social Security cards," Amemiya said. "We firmly believe that sports and other after-school activities teach teamwork, discipline, perseverance, hard work and accountability. But we’re using athletics as a tool to help students academically as well as in other areas to help their development.

"The ultimate goal is to roll out this program to every middle school across the state. Already some other complex areas have expressed interest in starting their own middle school athletic programs."

Students in the two school complexes would regularly play one another, Fujino said, but the goal is to expand to include competition from private schools.

Lois Yamauchi, a University of Hawaii developmental psychologist in educational psychology and the president of Parents for Public Schools, said she likes the idea of creating school-based teams geared specifically for the needs of middle school students.

As the mother of fifth- and eight-grade boys, Yamauchi said, "It’s quite alarming that we have so little physical education, especially in our middle schools."

The de-emphasis on winning will be particularly encouraging for middle school students whose bodies are rapidly changing as they go through puberty, she said.

"A lot of kids get very self-conscious about their bodies in middle school and may not be as comfortable, especially if they haven’t done a lot of physical activity before," Yamauchi said. "If you have something that’s fun and not competitive, a lot more kids who are sedentary will be involved."

The teams are one part of a larger goal to expand after-school learning for students in the two school complex areas as part of Hawaii’s Race to the Top initiatives, said Camille Masutomi, the DOE’s project manager for the two complex areas that make up the Department of Education’s Zones of School Innovation. The zones were created to place extra focus and help on persistently low-performing schools.

"There are very few after-school opportunities for intermediate students, certainly no athletics," Masutomi said. "So we’re using athletics as a carrot to participate in the After-School All-Stars Program."

Not every student in the all-stars program will want to join a team, she said. But every student who wants to play after-school sports has to be part of the daily, year-round, academic-based program, she said.

Darin Pilialoha, the principal at Nanakuli High and Intermediate, was still waiting on Wednesday to hear details on how his 400 seventh- and eighth-grade students will be involved.

But he was excited at the possibilities.

"It will help out with their academics," Pilialoha said. "And it’ll certainly be good for our kids."