Salem R-80 school officials and a group of parents are working together to make improvements to the athletic program after the group submitted a petition to the school board in January.
The petition, containing about 350 signatures, stated that sports programs have been declining, participation is down and that student-athlete morale is low due to lack of support from the administration. It also cited the teams’ poor win-loss records.
A group who want to see changes in the direction of athletics addressed the board in closed session at the Jan. 17 board meeting. In response, the district plans to form an athletic committee and make other moves the group requested.
Organizer Nick Gover said the group has talked to many parents whose sons and daughters are involved in the school’s sports programs.
“A lot of people weren’t happy with the way things are going as far as all kinds of different issues,” he said. He mentioned discipline issues with the teams, programs not getting the funding they need and what he called a general lack of accountability.
The petition was designed to “catch the ear” of the school board by showing community concern, he said. “We wanted to give them something where they would listen to us.”
The message was “that we don’t like the way the entire program is going, and we want something to happen,” he stressed. “It wasn’t necessarily about trying to get somebody fired or something negative like that. It was more like trying to get some positive change going with the athletic department at the school.”
Gover is pleased with the response from the school district.
Superintendent John McColloch said school officials met with board members and athletic director Phil Karr about forming an athletic committee comprised of parents, two board members, two coaches, a retired coach, a few student-athletes and a school administrator. The committee will meet monthly.
“Their purpose is an advisory role and to serve as a communication tool between parents and school and coaches,” McCulloch said. “As part of that committee we’re going to develop athlete and parent surveys for athletes and parents to complete at the close of their sports season, just basically on their experience in that sport.”
There are also plans to expand the athletic budget and purchase equipment and training tools to help the athletes improve performance. Karr spoke to coaches about what athletes need to better improve their skills.
“He got that list of items, and we’ll be developing a budget over the next three years to try to purchase as much of that as we can and put it in place for our student-athletes,” the superintendent said.
In addition, the district is developing a professional development budget that allows coaches at all levels to attend training seminars, conferences and other activities offered in Missouri that are sport-specific to their teams.
“That’s so they can craft their trade a little better to be more knowledgeable about plays and strategies and practice techniques and dealing with athletes and parents and those types of things,” McColloch said. “We’re going to make sure we send all of our coaches at all levels to at least one or more training seminars.”
Gover said he met with McColloch and Karr last week about the committee, surveys and other plans being discussed. McColloch gave him an overview of what the district is interested in doing.
“Nothing is set in stone yet,” he said. “I later spoke to Coach Karr, and he said it looks like it’s going to happen.”
Gover believes some of the group’s requests will be granted “and there’s a few other things they’re talking about possibly doing that would be helpful as well,” he said.
He sees the process moving in a positive direction, but said time will tell.
“It’s kind of a ‘put your money where your mouth is’ kind of thing. I mean we can all say things to make everybody happy, but until you actually see something happen, the issue is not going to go away,” he said.
In speaking to parents at games and at two meetings the group held locally, a number of talking points emerged, he noted.
They included:
• the need for athletes to be more disciplined,
• not being disrespectful to coaches,
• facing time on the bench for not showing up for practice
• coaches shouldn’t show favoritism
• coaches should invest more time in underclassmen to build a good program and
• coaches shouldn’t bicker among themselves in front of the athletes.
Parents also said the athletic director must hold coaches responsible for their actions. The school board needs to better support the coaching staff and back them up on discipline matters. Gover says parents believe the board also must hold coaches accountable for compiling losing records.
“Those are basically cherry-picked ideas from the community,” he said. “Those are things that people were talking about over and over again at the meetings, at the games, in phone calls, just individual conversations.”
Gover contends the 350 signatures collected in less than three weeks represent about half of those who support the effort, but many didn’t want to sign because their kids played ball, or they didn’t want to get involved. Signatures are still being collected online for another petition, he said.
The bottom line is the lack of winning in recent years. Football, volleyball and boys’ basketball in particular have struggled, with only three winning seasons combined in the last seven years.
Gover said alumni want to see the kind of success they enjoyed as players in the 1990s and early 2000s.
“The whole idea of this petition and what we’re trying to do is to make our athletic program as successful and positive as it used to be,” he said. “It’s just that simple. We want our kids to have the same great opportunity to be involved in something like we were involved with… They deserve the same opportunity.”
He said the group is dedicated to making that a reality.
“As we told the school board, we’re willing to come back every month if we have to until we see something happen. People are not just going to quit on it,” Gover said. “I think it sunk in with them.”
McColloch said Karr will be at each board meeting to give a monthly update. The athletic committee, once formed, will also be looking at changing the way booster clubs operate.
“We want to look at the role they provide and look at starting an avenue for the community athletic club to provide opportunities for our younger students to get involved in athletics at an earlier age,” he said.
On a larger scale, the district is looking at athletic capital improvement projects, specifically facilities that have been neglected for a while, McColloch said.
McColloch has also formed a facility planning committee. “We’re in the stages of assessment, with a firm that’s going through and assessing our facilities for us at the moment,” he said.
Topping the priority list is getting the athletic committee up and running, he noted.
“The main thing at the moment is getting that rolling and, out of that, some of these other things will start falling in place,” McColloch said.
He sees things moving forward and called the meeting with parents a good conversation.
“Everybody there who’s involved wants what’s best. That’s what we all want,” he said. “We’ve just got to figure out the best way to do that.”
School board president Bernie Sirois said the group’s appearance before the board was well received, and he expects a positive outcome.
“I think they did a good presentation, and what the school board’s going to do is create an opportunity for people to have input, basically like an oversight committee,” he said, that will bring a renewed focus on the sports programs. Sports weren’t being overlooked, but hadn’t been discussed much lately, Sirois said.
“I think what people are going to realize is, it’s the parents’ job to get their kids prepared to play competitive sports because the school doesn’t get involved until high school age,” he said. “It would be nice if we did start kids in sports in schools earlier in the school system. The rural schools do but in town we don’t.”
