Lincoln School Board hears HS sports concerns, approves staffing recommendations for 2021-22

During their April 12 meeting, the Lincoln School Board heard concerns about the future of the school's football program, the results of a survey regarding masking in school and addressed staff hiring for the 2021-22 school year.

Looking ahead at school sports in general, Lincoln Schools Athletic Director Shane Brown said there has been talk recently about possibly combining districts 13C and 14C for basketball, volleyball and track. For basketball and volleyball, that would involve planned games and changes to district tournaments, creating a "super tournament" of the best eight teams, half of which would go on to the divisional tournament.

"That's not going to happen next year, but it is something they're continuing to look at," he said.

Brown reported that track season is underway, with 12 athletes in both the junior high and High school teams and more meets opening up now that schools have realized they can hold meets and be safe.

While the track team sizes are solid, Brown discussed concerns about the prospects for junior high and high school football next year. The teams need a bare minimum of six players but there currently isn't enough interest to even meet those number. Even with six players, a season would likely be untenable due to eligibility issues, injuries and sickness.

Brown said upper class students just don't seem interested in football, and for those who are, he has to look at their record with eligibility, which plagued the team last fall.

Travis Williams, LHS football coach, said he has two seniors interested, but has concerns about both grades and medical issues. Others who are interested include sophomores or freshman, two of whom also have eligibility concerns.

"If I takeout all the ones I'm worried about, that leaves me with five, and they're all young. The guys we go up against, they wouldn't pull any punches," he said.

Brown suggested the possibility of offering cross country instead of football next fall, but the question then became whether they should offer that only for boys. Offering it for girls would be equitable and offer a benefit for them, but it could also affect participation in volleyball.

Regardless, Brown suggested offering something different for a year then revisiting the football issue next year.

"I've got a lot of 8th grade kids and a couple freshmen who are anxious to play, there just not enough of them around. Given another year, a few more of them might come up," he said, adding, however, that it doesn't solve the junior high football problem. He said the current numbers indicate junior high will be struggling for a while.

"I'm the last person to want to get rid of football. Brown said. "Were in a lull right now and I don't know how to solve it."

School Board president Aaron Birkholz noted that the challenge Lincoln faces is the reason schools move to co-op athletic programs with other schools.

Lincoln's distanced from other schools presents a challenge for a co-op programs. Browns said he's talked to Augusta for many years, but they've already started co-op programs with other schools such as Fairfield or Simms. Seeley, on the other hand, is a long drive, while a co-op with Drummond would be unlikely, due to the distance and the fact that if they opt to do a co-op program, they would more likely go with Granite High School.

Brown said he's seeking for feedback from students before looking into other options for next fall.

Birkholz suggested getting the high school and junior high kids together at some sort of assembly to discuss the fact that there are looking at possibly losing sports programs.

Lincoln Schools Superintendent Jen Packer reported that the school's standardized testing is complete. She believes the students generally did well.

"I'm anxious to see the scores. I think they did fairly well. Unfortunately they never come out until way later than they should."

Packer said she'd also like to offer some summer school to help kids catch up on their academics after doing several months of online learning and is looking at different programs and how they could do that.

The school board approved bringing back open campus, allowing kids leave campus during the day, with parental approval. Open campus had been suspended due to concerns about COVID-19.

Packer also discussed the continued use of masks at the school. She sent out surveys to parent to gauge their comfort for ending the use of at the school, if the county lifts the mask mandate before the end of the school year.

She recieved 37 responses. Of those, 81 percent were very comfortable with lifting the mask requirement, while 8.1 percent weren't at all comfortable. the remainder were "somewhat comfortable." She said 23 percent of respondents wanted to see masks continue to be worn in the hallways between classes, but 73 percent did not.

"You have some who are still very concerned and would want the student to get their vaccines before anything happens," she said .

A survey of teachers also revealed many of them would like to see the masks go away as well, but a few thought it would be OK to require them in the hallways. Packer said a couple teachers didn't want to see any change to the policy.

For the time being, the school will stick with the rules they've been using, since school policy is to follow the Lewis and Clark Public health guidelines and the county still has a mask mandate in place.

The remainder of the meeting centered on staffing for next year.

The board accepted the retirement letters for para professional Vicki West, who has been a with the school for 25 years, and history teacher Gary Roberson, who is retiring due to health concerns.

The board also approved the series of motions to rehire the other members of the current teaching staff, and offered tenure to Curtis Jensen and Nancy Schwalm.