New teams get School Board approval

By NATE HUBBARD/Staff

It was a tumultuous process with a simple verdict: dive in and play ball!
Three hours after starting its meeting Wednesday morning, the Wythe County School Board ended its protracted gathering by approving the introduction of three new countywide sporting activities.
The School Board endorsed the addition of a swim team at the high school level and baseball and softball teams for middle school students.
Despite its approval of the new teams, the School Board declined to offer any funding for the sports at this time.
“I personally think you have two wonderful ideas – I just hate the timing,” said School Board Vice Chairman Chalmer Frye in explaining the governing body’s action.
Wednesday’s meeting began calmly when swimming proponent David Harrison approached the School Board during time for public comment.
Harrison followed up Kim Aker’s presentation on the swimming proposal at the School Board’s September meeting by reiterating the benefits a swimming team could provide to high school students.
He keyed in on the dearth of winter sport opportunities beyond basketball and wrestling, emphasizing that swimmers in particular don’t have to be tall or brawny to be successful.
“It will give a lot more student-athletes an opportunity to compete in a high school sport,” Harrison said.
Harrison added that more than 60 kids between the ages of 5 and 18 currently participate in the town of Wytheville’s recreational swimming program.
“I think the timing is really right,” he said. “As time goes on, you will have a continual flow of students who enjoy swimming.”
Aker also attended Wednesday’s meeting and presented the School Board with a letter detailing the swimming group’s progress since introducing the idea in September, specifically referencing meetings with Wytheville’s recreation director regarding using the Wytheville Community Center’s pool for practices.
After Wednesday’s swimming presentation, Deanna Mabe followed Harrison to the podium and offered similar plans to create baseball and softball teams at each of the county’s three middle schools.
Mabe, the mother of a Scott Memorial Middle School seventh-grader, gave the School Board a detailed written proposal for adding the teams and also brought along four high school coaches of the sports who expressed their approval for middle school squads.
Jerad Ward, George Wythe High School’s baseball coach, gave the most colorful reasoning for adding the middle school teams as the science teacher described middle school sports as the amino acids needed to build the proteins that represented high school sports in his analogy.
“All those talents that they’ve had since they were four years old – they kind of lose it,” Ward said about kids who don’t have the opportunity to play middle school baseball.
Similarly to the School Board’s response following the swimmer’s initial presentation in September, the governing body at first declined to offer any comments after Mabe and the coaches’ remarks.
School Board member Alan Wilder, though, asked School Board Chairman Walter White to explain how the group would go about dealing with the proposals.
White initially said the matter would be discussed in closed session, drawing a rebuke from Wilder, who questioned the legality of shutting the public out of talks on the issue.
After a short back-and-forth debate between Wilder and White, the group continued on with its agenda, leaving the issue unresolved.
About 45 minutes later, the School Board went into closed session, but White said the sports issue wouldn’t be discussed until he reopened the meeting.
The closed session lasted more than an hour, but the group eventually invited the public back in and took up the sports discussion.
Superintendent Albert Armentrout started the reconvened open session just before noon by detailing the many financial challenges facing the school system.
Armentrout said he’s expecting to be underbudgeted for diesel fuel costs and also is bracing for potentially higher electricity costs this winter and reductions in state funding for education next year.
“I’m trying to position this school system by being very tightwadish with our finances this year,” he said.
The superintendent called the prospective sporting activities “wonderful opportunities,” but said he couldn’t justify funding the teams when the school system next year must spend local money to keep six reading specialist positions and likely will have to use local money for any teacher raises.
“The new sports teams go down on the list,” Armentrout said. “I’m trying to reconcile their desires with all the fiscal responsibility that we have.”
Armentrout then recommended supporting the new teams, but with the caveat that they wouldn’t be added to this year’s budget or included in next year’s either.
Both Aker and Mabe said they understood the school system’s constraints and said they’d welcome the support even without funding.
In Aker’s latest letter, she actually indicated that the swim team thought it could get by with doing its own fundraising, at least for the first year.
Mabe’s proposal asked for only minimal funding from the school system as she had requested about $750 for transportation costs for the first season. Equipment and other supplies would be paid out of individual school activity accounts or through fundraising.
She also indicated that she had coaches willing to work on a volunteer basis to get the programs started and would seek additional funding through Wythe-Bland Community Foundation and Wythe County Public Schools Foundation for Excellence grants.
School Board member Deborah Crigger questioned if not funding the new teams would make it cost prohibitive for certain students to participate, but Aker and Mabe said the fundraising efforts would make the sports accessible to all students.
Although Aker and Mabe seemed all right with the two-year funding moratorium, Wilder said he disagreed with determining now that no money would be available.
He said he supported approving the teams without funding for now, but asked that the possibility be left open to offer financial support to the activities if the budgetary situation improves in the coming months or year.
Armentrout said he supported Wilder’s sentiment – as long as the group understood that any potential funds for the teams in the near future would be a “lovely surprise” and not something to be expected.
The governing body then prepared to vote on a motion simply stating it supported the sports, but couldn’t fund them at this time.
School Board member Stephen Sage, though, added to the motion an amendment specifically stating that the group would fund the teams if money becomes available.
The amendment got the School Board sidetracked on a squabble over technicalities relating to the appropriateness of attaching budgetary matters onto the motion of unfunded support for the programs.
In the end, Wilder and School Board member William Kidd voted against the amendment, both simply because they felt the funding issue should be left for discussions on next year’s budget.
“I don’t want to attach a negative statement to what I see is a very positive program,” Wilder said.
On the overall motion to support the programs, though, the group ultimately voted its unanimous 7-0 approval.
But Wednesday’s gathering provided one last spark of acrimony as Wilder ended the meeting by expressing his strong disapproval of the day’s drawn out process.
Wilder called making the public wait through the governing body’s lengthy closed session before discussing the sports issue an “insult to citizens.”
With the School Board’s support in the end secured, all three newly sanctioned sports programs hope to begin practices and competitions this school year – high school swimming during the winter season and middle school baseball and softball in the spring.
Additional logistical details still need to be finalized for all three endeavors, but the groups said they’ll strive to have at least a few meets and games during the 2008-09 school year.
Nate Hubbard can be reached at 228-6611 or .