dmmetler

If you have to have the requistite "same job" choir, I prefer nurses to NFL athletes for whom a 1 million dollar prize divided is about what they drop on dinner one night. At least if the nurses had won, they could make a mortgage or rent payment or two. As a music teacher, I actually didn't hate Metal girl-it is just as reasonable for a kid that age to be into metal or emo as for one to be into Opera-and it's less likely to damage the vocal cords and more likely to be "just for fun". I would be amazed if she made the cuts for the live shows, though.

As a sax player, he was decent, but not an exceptional sax player. Basically, almost any university school of music with a jazz studies program will have a few of similar caliber. A lot of the sound is the set up-reed/mouthpiece/ligature on a good horn. However, he had a good story. I would be amazed if he made it through the first round of the live shows.

In high school, we weren't allowed to dance ('80s conservatives...sigh) but we did have skating parties where we took over the entire skating rink to contemporary Christian music. That rink was right on, down to the mood lighting which was a boon to teens looking for a place to make out.

I think they should have done three groups with one finalist from each group. It feels like "good" got an advantage just due to the name.

As the mom of a kid majoring in Herpetology, I really would love to see a frog or snake win it all....

Tuatara are extremely long lived. Wild tuatara have made it over 60 years, and captive ones over a century, so it’s entirely possible that the same animal could be on display now who was on display when Barbara was in kindergarten herself. And since NZ does not allow them off the island, the only ones in non-NZ zoos are extremely old. I’ll be interested in seeing how they handle this!

I actually really liked the choreographed construction vehicles. Maybe because it was not a professional circus act. Or maybe because I teach 6 yr olds.

I'm a former inner city music teacher in Memphis. Except that the slang is different, almost everything in this show could happen in my school. Good, bad, and ugly.

I'm a teacher who ended up pulling my 2e kid (profound giftedness/autism) out of public school because there was just no way they could meet the needs of my little statistical outlier, who was neither gifted nor autistic for just a couple of hours a week. I did giggle at the snakes-because my identified PG/ASD kid adores reptiles, and hatching chickens is normal kindergarten stuff, but hatchuhf snakes would be much more interesting. Although everyone would have noticed the difference between snake eggs and chicken eggs. Snake eggs are shaped differently (more cylindrical than ovoid) and are leathery.

Also, having taught in an urban system, there were far more Avas and Gregorys in Admin than Barbaras. Avas were incompetent in the classroom, picked up credentials at night and were promoted due to knowing someone. Gregorys started on the admin track and never planned on teaching long term-and were promoted due to wanting men to be visible in elementary schools. Both types learned quickly to get out of the way of Barbara. I will say that the best principal I ever worked under was a retired Marine training NCO who was a Gregory. He taught two years in high school, then took over leadership of a school that was basically Abbott. He believed in chain of command and that his job was to make it possible for those under him to do their jobs effectively, but otherwise stayed out of the way. Unfortunately, cancer took him too soon.

As a former Memphis City teacher, this is almost too true to be funny. From the lack of budget, to principal promoted due to nepotism and completely incompetent, to the experienced teacher who can make the entire school quiet down with a look, while new teachers struggle, to the guy who is on the administrator track (we got quite a few who taught only long enough to get the minimum experience and were promoted above long time women who had spent years in the classroom as as assistant principal). And yes, the kids who sleep at school because it’s safe, teachers who are spending their own money to outfit their classrooms, books that stopped about the time you graduated high school, if you were lucky, and that you spend far more time on meeting basic needs than actually teaching. I’m on Spring Break, so I finally have time to catch up on streaming.

Last season a lot of competitions did awards virtually, and only allowed people from that one Program in for the performance (and some were virtual or hybrid). Most venues had capacity limits. While it didn't affect Navarro/TVCC, a lot of schools also didn't compete in 2021-many schools were all or mostly virtual for fall, and putting together a routine in Spring only would be hard, and some colleges didn't have sports at all last year, or had only NCAA sports.

In UCA, which is the other college cheer competition (and where the bare midriffs and more all star flash wouldn't fly), JC's are in the"open" division with Smaller 4 year schools. There's more competition there. Northern MS CC would be the current Champion in the equivalent division (Open Coed Traditional). Open schools, both 2 and 4 year, tend to get a lot of tall girls and short boys-IE, the kids who don't meet the body types that the schools that cheer in D1 and D1a do. UCA doesn't have an equivalent rivalry to Navarro/TVCC in the Open division, but the past series Cheerleader U focused on some of the top DI teams, like Kentucky and UCF.

Alumni interviews are usually just a sales pitch to get a student to apply as much as anything else, as are early "interviews" with admissions. The only thing off to me was that it was at their house vs meeting in Stsrbucks or Panera for a half hour time slot. It's basically a blind date arranged by the college board or ACT people. Alumni are usually used when there aren't enough people in the area to make it worth sending an admissions rep. You also see alumni reps at college fairs-they knoW nothing about the college thafisn't in the flyer they are handing out, since they graduated decades ago, but they are sure enthusiastic🙂 And I don't know how common it was in the 1980's, but in the 2020's, yeah, colleges will actively encourage applications from kids who are barely or not at all qualified because it makes them look good to be selective and reject a lot of people.

The most common path after college cheer is coaching. And almost all coaches have a day job-the only one at DD’s gym who does not is the University of Memphis coach-and he still coaches two all star teams and two school teams on top of the UM teams, so he has three coaching jobs. Many coaches I know teach school, and it can be a tough haul to teach kids all day and then go coach after school and at night-one of the coaches I know taught high school history all day, coached middle and high school cheer in the afternoons, and All Star Cheer 4 nights a week, high school games on Saturdays, and many weekends. Jerry would probably make an excellent coach. Another path is working for a company like Varsity or Rebel on the business, fashion design, event planning, or other facets of the cheer industry side-I can see Gabi going that route.

Cheer scoring is one of the most debated/complained about things in the sport, especially at really big competitions, where it is common to have prelims and semifinals going on in multiple locations, and sometimes there are BIG differences in scoring between panels. Having said that, while I don’t know how NCA college does it, for All Star cheer you typically are scored twice, so usually all teams in a division will be scored by the same judging panels, just not necessarily on the same day, and the scores averaged (sometimes 50/50,sometimes an uneven split). And they do record teams and go back and check scoring if there are major discrepancies.

It can take longer than 2 years to get an AS because a lot of student go less than full time due to work, family, or because they need non-credit classes to get up to the level needed to do college credit. Usually you can do sports at a 2 year school as long as you are half-time. And it wouldn’t surprise me to find that many of the Navarro cheerleaders do a lighter load to accommodate their practice schedule.

I’m going to mentally decide that it is more a community choir that happens to meet at the church, so they do music they want to do, as opposed to a church choir.

NCA Nationals is in April, so I assume the returning kids did fall somewhere else, and came back to Navarro for the Spring to compete at Nationals, with the expectation of another season of the show. They can probably do that without losing admission at their other school, and take a class or two that will transfer, especially if they weren’t core complete and hadn’t actually completed an AS before transferring. It seems unfair to the kids who tried out for and made Navarro and cheered the entire football season. At most schools, you have to be on the team in the fall to go to Nationals-but there is nothing against the rules about it.

UCA college nationals is going on now-there are several community colleges that have done well (UCA blends 2 year schools, Division III NCAA, and NAIA). It would be interesting to follow a UCA style program if the show continues.

It may be worse than that for Gabi. Many of the cheer "ambassadors" for different companies aren't actually paid. They get their travel covered to do catalog shots, uniform reveal videos, and events for the company and lots of stuff in exchange for doing photo shoots and mentioning the company on Instagram, etc. Gabi models for Rebel, and they definitely follow that business plan. Gabi may actually be paid now, but I could also see her parents encouraging her to do the free stuff for exposure for her clinics, bikini sales, etc. My DD's last season was #WTLTBAP. If you listened to their chant, you could figure it out, but it was still this closely held secret that everyone at all related to the team knew, and probably anyone who competed against them and was in the warm up room did as well.

Music rights is the excuse Varsity uses for requiring the custom music, stripping out music from the few videos they release even when that music was custom and the rights clearly licensed, etc. Even if you subscribe to Varsity TV, there is no sound except on the Livestream. Watch later and it's silent, so not nearly as interesting to show grandma-or, really, for anything but coaches who want to point out mistakes to the team. I honestly would love to see a comp where every team used the count music (the music Navarro used in practices-I swear every team in the country practices to the same recording) just to point out how repetitive cheer music has gotten. And I really don't understand the reasoning for, if not allowing Netflix's crew in, not allowing them the official Varsity TV recording. It just made Varsity look bad. I would be interested in them going to TVCC, since Trinity Valley is the other team in the JC division that usually does well score-wise against 4 year schools. In UCA, there are a few, but they are in the Open division, with the DIII 4 year schools. I suspect it has equally compelling stories. If you want to see 4 year college cheer, there is one season of Cheerleader U on Amazon Prime, following Kentucky (who is a regular winner in the 1A division, which is the most competitive at UCA-it's dominated by schools where football is a religion). Liked that they showed the pre-routine ritual/chant. Honestly, there is more of a show to watch in warm ups than on the mat, because each team has their own ritual and superstitions. The team going back after stopping is a two-edged sword. They do get to substitute, but the tumble bust that caused the injury is still in the routine, and putting a new person in can make the stunts more unstable and cost more score loss than if the rest of the group had just marked the stunt. And at that level, hitting zero (no deductions) is basically required to win-it is not odd for all of the top 5 scores to be within a point of each other. So you are going back out knowing that you already have a deduction. And as someone who has paid $500+ for a uniform, which is then babied like a Kentucky Derby winning racehorse, seeing those uniforms in the surf made me cringe. I know it's a ritual, but I'll bet some person is spending a lot of time with E1000 replacing lost crystals after they are cleaned. Unless Varsity or Rebel comps their uniforms. It's fairly common for kids to take 3 years to finish an AS. I assume that Morgan will have to register for classes for something in order to cheer at Navarro. Or, honestly, I'm guessing Cheer Athletics has an International Level 6 or 7 that could use her. I think Jerry is going to be an awesome cheer coach someday (while also being an amazing something else). But I want to see him excel at Louisville first.

Varsity has let other shows film at All Star Worlds/US Finals/NHSCC, so I don't understand why they didn't let Netflix film. They have gotten really bad about forcing takedowns of even private videos on YouTube, though. And while one excuse is the music rights, I am very sure whoever does the sound editing for Navarro made sure they had rights for the music for the Netflix show since they showed practIce. I hope they do a second season, but cheer shows haven't had a good history of getting the kind of support needed for a 2nd season. One thing in their favor-Cassidee Dunlap, from Cheer Perfection, is on Navarro's team this season, so there's a backstory there, which has a pretty good amount of filmed footage already.

Another cheer mom here-my DD has cheered for 10 years and is out this season rehabbing a knee injury (and probably has long term damage and arthritis at age 15-cheer injuries are no joke). Navarro is unique because it is a junior college with open admissions, so while most top schools for cheer first require that you can get into the school, and then, if you do, you can get a spot on the team, Navarro can recruit just based on cheer-and because they can give an out of area tuition waiver even if they can give no other scholarship money, it makes it very affordable for kids who want to cheer (realistically one year of all Star cheer costs more than full out of state tuition, fees, room and board at Navarro). And it means that kids like Lexi have access-it is unlikely she would be able to get into a college other than a JC/CC. One of my DD's former coaches had a similar background, and like Lexi, had been scholarshipped at a cheer gym due to his tumbling talent. It often is easier for guys to get recognized this way, but socially, there is a big cost-a male cheerleader often finds himself stereotyped at school, and a scholarshipped cheerleader often can't do the outside of cheer social stuff or feel comfortable at the gym. Gabi Butler has had a lot of rumors swirling around her for years. Partially because of her jumping from team to team and gym to gym. She's one of the most visible (and, really,one of the first) "Cheerleberties" who have been able to monetize cheer via social media, being a brand ambassador, modeling for companies, etc. And I think her parents have tended to encourage controversy-or at least not discourage it. I do wonder if she would be allowed as much freedom at a University of Kentucky or similar program as she has at Navarro. BTW-for those who don't know cheer, a National Champion is crowned in each division. So being 12 times national champions of the JC division isn't nearly as big of a deal as being 4x NCA grand champions, which requires the top score of the entire competition across divisions. In addition, cheer doesn't have just one Nationals-there is NCA, which is more like All Star and more flashy, which does Nationals in Daytona, and UCA, which is more like high school cheer,has a longer cheer and dance requirement, and does Nationals in Orlando. Schools do one or the other, and while it is somewhat geographic, it isn't totally (University of Kentucky is UCA, University of Louisville NCA). There are a lot of National Champions in Cheer. (And it is worse at the All Star level, where it is possible to win Nationals several times in a single season, and the debate over which Nationals is most prestigious is pretty heated). There also is a Team USA, which is selected from the top college cheerleaders and recent graduates, generally as stunt groups, and which competes at worlds. Navarro's record of alumni on team USA is quite high. I was cringing during the Texas History/culture. As one of the guys said, cheer is very accepting-there are a lot of gay guys that end up finding their place at All Star gyms, and there have been quite a few pretty prominent cheerleaders who have transitioned and stayed on teams-since it is a co-ed sport, there is literally no problem with what uniform an athlete chooses to wear. I can imagine some of those out of state kids who were so thrilled to get into Navarro in order to cheer feeling like they were going to be attacked the minute they got off the mat. Home/Online schooling for cheer isn't terribly uncommon, especially for kids at the Worlds level, who often end up living with a host family so they can be on a specific team. It's also the case that all Star cheer is often a good way for a homeschooled kid to have a regular group of peers, and while kids in traditional schools often bridge to other activities in middle/high school, and have school cheer, homeschoolers tend to stick with it, so senior teams often have a lot of kids who are homeschooled. And it definitely makes it easier to travel for the sport, since most gyms do at least 5-6 competitions. Honestly, though, I haven't seen many cheer kids who weren't pretty academically focused as well. Except for Team USA, which tends to come from top college cheerleaders, the epitome of the sport is at the University level. And you don't get to cheer for University of Kentucky, Kansas U, UCF, Auburn, Old Miss, etc without being pretty competitive academically, too. I suspect Navarro is getting a slightly different group of kids

As someone who taught school music in the 1990's, I can attest that coming up with a winter program that both included everyone and avoided upsetting anyone was pretty close to impossible. There weren't a lot of good options for Kwanzaa And not much better for Hanukkah-a lot of the songs were about like the "Boxing Day" one in this episode. I suppose I should be glad that no one ever demanded a Diwali Carol or that I include Krampus.