Olympia middle, high school students achieve nearly 31% participation in athletics 

Athletic participation rates in the Olympia School District were 32.9% at the high school level and 27.5% at the middle school level during the 2023-24 academic year.

Executive Director of Secondary Education James Whitehead reported the 2023-24 Secondary Student Activities in Sports at the district’s Board of Directors meeting on Thursday, April 10, 2025. 

“At the high school level, we have about 33% of our students participating in at least one sport,” Whitehead said. “At the middle school level, we're looking at about 27 and a half percent.” 

When looking at the whole high school and middle school population, the student athletic participation is at 30.9%. 

Whitehead said the middle school data could be “slightly better” because the report is missing one middle school that was not able to submit last year. 

Disproportionality 

The district conducts Student Interest Survey Under Title IX, which looks at disproportionality between genders at the middle school and high school levels, or grades seven through 12.  

“We survey all of our students between seventh and 12th grade to look at what are additional sports activities that students are interested in,” Whitehead said. 

For 2023-24, the district recorded that 31.5% of the female student population participated in sports, while 31.5% of the male student population participated. There is also 14.2% participation in other genders. 

“We look at our gender populations, and … who is participating, and we keep an eye on that ... whether or not we have to any disproportionality,” Whitehead said. 

For the income category, 32.7% of the low-income students (Yes) and 30.3% of the non-low-income students (No) participated.  

Whitehead explained that the “Yes” or the ones included in the group, in this case, the low-income group, are typically lower than the “No” or the ones not in the group. 

“We're looking at disproportionality. And sometimes … more commonly the Yes, would be a lower number. But in this case … they're pretty even,” Whitehead said.

For the Special Education category, only 12.1% of the ones categorized in the group (Yes) and 34.0% of the ones not included (No) in the group participated. 

“One of the things that we do want to kind of track and make sure, and I'd like to see the number go up, is actually the third chart there, which is our students who are ... identified as having special education, or receiving special education services,” Whitehead said. 

The district recently conducted the current school year’s survey, which closed last week.