During the public comment period at the start of Tuesday night’s Mathews County School Board meeting, Mathews High School students made a pitch for making the indoor track coach a paid position.
School board members also heard from a county supervisor who attempted to criticize an MHS employee, but was instructed not to do so by school board chairman Linda Hodges.
Indoor track
MHS student Rileigh Betz and several of her fellow indoor track athletes made the pitch for indoor track to be included in next year’s budget and in subsequent school budgets. She said the program is quite successful, with team members routinely qualifying for regional and state competition. In fact, Betz is one of several MHS athletes who are competing this week in the Group 1A state tournament at Roanoke College.
Specifically, she asked for the school board to make indoor track coach a paid position.
At the second public comment period at the conclusion of Tuesday night’s meeting, Lee-Jackson Elementary School principal Drew Greve (who also serves as the high school’s track and field coach) spoke out in favor of the students’ request. Although indoor track, he said, is not a high-profile sport, it is as important to these athletes as football or basketball is to the students who compete on those teams.
Indoor track has been offered at MHS for the past four or five seasons, Greve said, and “it would be nice to take the next step and have a paid position.”
Employee critique
Edwina Casey, who said she was not addressing the school board as a member of the Mathews County Board of Supervisors but rather as a county resident, passed along a letter which she said was from another resident. The letter was critical of the way in which the MHS athletic department is being managed.
“There’s something going on in the school system that needs very cautious attention,” Casey said. “It’s gone on a pretty long time now.” The problem, she said, is bullying—but it’s not the students who are the perpetrators, but “a person that works at the school.”
Casey was instructed by Hodges not to address a specific employee; prior to the school board’s public comment period, those planning to speak are advised not to discuss individual personnel or student matters. School board member Jeanice Sadler stated her objection to this restriction, citing an opinion from Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring that this is a violation of the speakers’ First Amendment rights.
Casey brought up another complaint, one in which she had personal experience. She said that, as a substitute bus driver four or five years ago, she had been repeatedly tested for illegal drugs, even though the tests were supposed to be administered on a random basis.
“I got sent to be … tested seven times,” Casey said. She said that she passed all seven tests. Casey went on to claim that a current employee in the school system is a “drug addict.”
Lee-Jackson gym roof
In other news, school and county officials will discuss the future repair of the Lee-Jackson Elementary gymnasium roof at a meeting at 10 a.m. Friday in the county administration building.
Timothy Jester, structural engineer at TAM Consultants Inc. of Williamsburg, will discuss the repair plan for the failed truss system, according to Superintendent of Schools Nancy Welch. It has been a little over a year since the problem was first discovered. Since that time, the gym has been closed to students, who now use the Brooks Auditorium at Thomas Hunter Middle School for gym class.
After the meeting, Welch said, a Request for Proposals will be drawn up and the school and county will have a better idea of the scope of the project and its cost.
The school board will hold a budget work session at 4 p.m. Tuesday in the MHS media center. A public hearing on the proposed 2017-2018 school budget will be held the following Tuesday, March 7, at 6 p.m. at the same location.