WAPELLO — There will be two new assistant athletic coaches in the Wapello School District this school year, but the school board’s hiring decision during its regular monthly meeting on Wednesday was not unanimous.
Both a decision to establish and hire an assistant soccer coach and an assistant golf coach passed on 3-2 votes, with board members Dave Moore, Brandon Marquardt and Kenny Marlette voting in favor, while board president Doug Housman and board member Matt Smith were opposed. .
The board vote followed a report on coaching positions by athletic director Brandon Brown in which he recommended the new hires. The report was requested by the board last month. It focused on the district’s normal allocation of coaching positions and the thresholds when coaching positions could face reductions or increases in some sports or other activities.
According to Brown’s report, 21 sports/activities offered in the district would have a set number of coaches regardless of the number of student participants.
These ranged from four coaches for boys and girls track to a single coach in robotics, eSports, Pom Squad and boys/girls cross country. Brown recommended three coaches for football and boys and girls wrestling, with the remaining sports and other activities always having two coaches.
In addition to these set numbers, Brown’s recommendation also included the number of athletes that would trigger either a gain or loss of a coach when that threshold was reached.
For volleyball that number would be 25; for football it would be 45; boys/girls cross country, 15; and boys/girls golf, 15.
Brown said the boys/girls golf team had reached that level and recommended the assistant coach.
He also recommended a soccer assistant, although he said his preference would have been to have one each for the girls and the boys team. Instead, the single position will be shared between the two teams.
Brown also suggested that if girls wrestling, which was recently sanctioned as a district sport, continued to grow, a head girls coach might be recommended in the future.
While all the board members indicated support for the programs, Smith and Housman said they had reservations about adding positions now.
Housman suggested his primary concern involved the financial factor and his experience in dealing with staff reductions during budget cutting.
“I’m going to be a no vote simply because of economics,” he said.
Smith had previously voted against adding a volleyball assistant, reminding the rest of the board about past coaching numbers when there were only one or two coaches, but team membership was higher.
“What has changed that we need more?” he asked.
Supporters offered different perspectives.
Marquardt cited liability issues, improved student athlete development, coaching burnout and other issues as justification for additional coaches.
Moore agreed.
“I’m in more agreement with Brandon,” he told the rest of the board.
In other action, the board:
- Approved several new hires for the school year;
- Examined several board policies as part of the board’s regular rotational review;
- Approved the second and final reading of several new board policies dealing with issues involving student fund raising, nutrition and radon;
- Agreed to declare a school bus surplus property and sold it to Southeast Community College for $12,500. The college will use the bus in its CDL training program, which should help increase the number of school bus drivers in the area and their availability in the area;
- Declared a variety of obsolete athletic department items as surplus.