Yes Virginia, There is Chess after 6th Grade!

When my own son graduated from the 6th grade, I thought to myself, “Well – that’s it. Chess is over”. I looked back with a combined sense of relieve and sorrow, recalling watching my boy grow from a small Kindergartner just learning to play – to placing in the top 25 in Washington State in his final year. Those memories fill me with enormous pride.

Introduction

As I looked around the “Middle School” opportunities, I realized that I knew very little about Middle School chess. I found that some parents knew quite a bit about it and others just thought chess “died” after grade 6.

A small group of committed parents would like to change that — and we need your help.

Middle School Chess has traditionally been a “bridge” from the Elementary System where most of the opportunities are focused on individual competition to the High School System where most of the play is based on a true Team playing head to head against another school team. Unfortunately, as kids enter their teen years, the things that are important to the change drastically and those events they do participate in demand much more time (if your child is like mine, video games seem far more important!). It becomes very hard to prioritize. This, along with other factors, has caused a significant drop in participation. With fewer kids playing, fewer kids want to play (who wants to always have unbalanced games or worse, playing the same kids over and over again!).

I’ve been asked to take over the Washington State Individual and Team Championships – something I’m proud to do. At the same time, there are very few players across the state continuing in scholastic chess when compared to elementary grade levels. There are a number of things we plan to do to change that.  Our focus will be to continue to provide opportunities for kids to participate in high level, serious play that is appropriate for their age. In addition, we want to make Chess more accessible to more kids by creating ways that they can participate in Team Events (even if there are not enough kids in their school to form a team), more individual events and improve communication with the most important person – you, the parent. Without your support, Middle School Chess will dwindle.  In the coming months, we will be sending out a series of communications informing you of opportunities to allow your child to remain active if he or she chooses.

Web Site

Part of our activity is establishing a Middle School Chess Web Site that will be a single source for all the activities and opportuniti4es in the State that we can find and are told about. The site is www.middleschoolchess.com.  Please join us, subscribe to our newsletter and keep coming back to our site. We need your participation and thoughts to make Middle School Chess grow and thrive!