In the past few years, parents in the Octorara Area School District have pitched in to build a regionally competing football club from the ground up, raised $16,000 through PTO fundraisers to build a playground for middle school students, and promised to raise $105,000 to keep a middle school sports program when it was cut from the district's tight budget.
Despite the above-and-beyond work of many, there have apparently been troublesome incidents on the sidelines from a few, so athletic coaches in the district are taking steps to make sure there is no question that there will be good conduct at games from those on the sidelines and in bleachers.
A “parent pledge,” requiring cooperation and good sportsmanship among parents of school athletes attending games, was a controversial topic when the school board met Nov. 15.
Athletic Director Jim Weagley said signed pledges are being suggested by coaches because of poor conduct by some spectators at games. In one incident involving a parent, police were called, and parents have been asked to suspend their attendance due to allegedly poor sportsmanship.
Board member Brian Norris said under the terms of a proposed parent pledge, the conduct of parents will bring disciplinary action, but no disciplinary action is taken against school athletes as a result of parental actions. Octorara teachers who are coaches are also asking parents that parents with comments or questions only contact them at school during business hours.
Norris, however, pointed out that some coaches are not district employees and may not take calls involving coaching matters at work.
In a separate athletic matter, Allen Brown of Atglen questioned the hiring of two assistant wrestling coaches during a time of budget cuts. The board hired Joshua Parker and Jason Smith as assistant high school wrestling coaches at salaries of $2,565 each. Weagley defended the coaches as necessary to help the 30 athletes with a long season. He said the coaching positions are not new and are required under the district’s collective bargaining agreement with Octorara teachers.
Board member Bob Hume told board members he felt the school board should not proceed with plans for a bond issue to finish the last phase of the high school renovation.
School board president Lisa Bowman told Hume the approved project is 85 percent complete and the board could not simply stop and leave the high school as is.
The board last month approved borrowing a final amount of approximately $10 million to complete its $67 million capital improvement project on the centralized campus. The project included land acquisition, a new intermediate school, and high school renovations. Carsley said Nov. 19 the bond issue will likely move forward in early January.
Board member John Malone said he wants to encourage more community involvement in the school district budget process as the district considers next year’s spending plan and how to cope with an anticipated increase in its contribution to the state retirement fund for teachers.
Board members also asked administrators to continue to increase student, parent and community awareness of cyber bulling by offering instructional seminars to elementary and intermediate school students.
Following a recent incident in which students and the district were targeted by a Facebook site called “Octorara Dirt,“ which has been taken down, seminars on internet safety and preventing cyber bulling were held at the high school and middle school.
Finally, the school board: approved a high school Discussion Club; hired Mary Cassidy, Gary Gawin and Cheryl Coughlin as volunteer swim coaches; and approved a child rearing leave for speech therapist Elizabeth Piotrowski.
-30-