By VICKI URBANIK

Duneland’s sixth graders will get to compete interscholastically in three sports in the coming school year, possibly starting with the fall cross country season.

The Duneland School Board unanimously approved a plan to bring the school system in line with the change at the Duneland Athletic Conference that allows sixth grade boys and girls to compete in the middle school level in cross country, wrestling and track. All other sixth-grade sports will remain intramural.

Steven LaPosa, athletic director at Chesterton Middle School, said without the school board’s action, Duneland would have been the only school system in the conference without sixth grade participation in middle school sports.

He told the board that the change was largely prompted by the fact that the conference now has 18 middle schools, two more than previously. The Crown Point middle school has broken off into two schools, and Hobart has rejoined the conference. Both have 6th-8th grade middle schools.

LaPosa noted that when Duneland established the 5th and 6th grade intermediate schools, the thinking was that the sixth grades would be kept separate from the seventh and eighth grades. “This is a different situation,” he said.

If Duneland kept the status quo, its sixth graders would fall behind in athletics, because all other seventh graders would have already had one year of competition sports. The change will “give our kids a competitive edge,” he said.

The school board agreed to try to implement the change this fall, in time for the cross country season, if the logistics can be worked out.

LaPosa said meetings will now take place with the school principals and staff to work out a variety of issues, such as whether the sixth graders will practice at their home school or get transportation to Chesterton Middle School.

Although there was some question that the logistics might not get worked out in time for this fall, school board member John Marshall said that of the three sports, cross country is probably the easiest for the school corporation to manage.

Westchester Intermediate School Principal Tim McGinty also put in a plug for the change to be implemented this fall, and for planning meetings to be scheduled right away.

“The sooner we meet to get this ironed out, the better,” he said.