Abbotsford School Board declines athletic trainer proposal
The Abbotsford School Board decided to forgo a proposal to provide athletic training at the school’s home games for the foreseeable future at its meeting on Monday night.
The cheapest proposal for the position came in from Health in Motion out of Marshfield. Colby and Athens school districts approved a similar proposal at their meetings on Monday.
Health in Motion would provide an athletic trainer for two schools to share. The proposal would cost each school $20,000 with Health in Motion providing the funding for the rest of the athletic trainer employee’s salary and benefits.
District Administrator Ryan Bargender said in his report that he didn’t think the benefit of having a trainer half the time was worth the $20,000 bill and recommended the board choose not to pursue the option.
Bargender said Stratford, Edgar and Owen-Withee are all schools that are not going with the proposal. He added that Edgar hasn’t had a trainer at events for about four years.
Sporting events including football games are not required to have EMS personnel in attendance. However, the WIAA rules regarding medical personnel at football games does require a physician to be available by phone. Bargender noted that the school could have a doctor or athletic trainer come in to teach coaches proper technique for dealing with certain injuries pre-game or in-game.
The school districts of Colby, Spencer, Abbotsford and Owen-Withee will be providing one graduating student from each school with an opportunity to get a good portion of their college paid for. The “Growing Our Own” scholarship program was passed by the Abbotsford School Board on Monday night and will provide up to $16,000 in scholarship aid to students looking to pursue a college degree in education.
The stipulations for the scholarship require recipients to commit to teaching in the district which provided the scholarship if possible. If a position is not available in that recipient’s specific field, the recipient must choose one of the other schools in the consortium to work at. If no schools are offering employment for a position in which they are certified, the employment requirement would be waived.
The employment period for consortium schools to retain recipients of the scholarship would be five years following college graduation. Should the recipient not accept employment for a position they are eligible for, full repayment of the scholarship is required. If a teacher would not want to stay at the school for five years, the district would require a pro-rated repayment from the recipient of the scholarship.
The idea behind the program is to encourage students aspiring to head into the education field to keep their talents local. It would also help the districts with some of the staffing shortages they have seen in recent years.
In previous meetings, it was noted that this program has been used by other big districts and consortiums of smaller schools to promote teaching in students’ hometowns.
Bargender told the board the Marawood Conference will be voting in August whether to convert to online ticketing or not for sporting events. Last year, the school made $16,776 in ticket sales and under the online ticketing proposal, the school would lose $1 for every ticket sold on the online service.
Bargender estimated that over $5,500 of the school’s ticket sales would be lost to the online service if the conference approved it. Bargender noted that an option to recoup that cost would be to charge attendees at sporting events an extra dollar for admission, however, he said he was against that option.
He also said he thought that a lot of the community members would prefer to pay in cash as not everyone has a debit or credit card. He said there would be a way that the school could do the online option and still have cash boxes at events as well.
Other business
n Bargender updated the board on the football media booth that is scheduled to be installed this summer. He said Market & Johnson is currently a month behind on the bid process. He said they have run into other work that has come up but he would like to be patient with them as they are doing this job partially as a favor to the district.
n CPI projections are coming in at about 3.5% 4.5% for next year. The school will see an increase in the low revenue ceiling from $10,000 to $11,000 per student.
n Bargender said he gave Wisconsin Senator Jesse James a tour of the facilities and the new FEMA addition on June 5. James said he was impressed with the FEMA building and the overall facilities that make up the district.
n The board agreed to a transportation contract through the 2024-25 school year with Burnett Transit. The rates increased for extra-curricular activities from $20.20 per hour this year to $25/hour next year and $26/hour the year after.
The increase reflects a 4% hike across regular routes and special education routes as well. Bargender said he held a meeting with Joe Burnett, owner of Burnett Transit, in which Burnett said the increase needed to occur to help him find drivers to take teams and clubs on trips in the afternoons.
n Bargender also gave the board an update on the Clark County “Seal A Smile” program that gives participating students the opportunity to have their teeth sealed and/or cleaned by dental professionals. Bargender said there were an alarming amount of students this year with untreated decay. Board member Yvonne Vazquez said this could be due to the fact that dentists in the area are booked out for a while.
The report on the program showed that 28% of the students who were eligible, participated in the program. 54% of those students had untreated decay. The report estimated that the students saved $29,874 in dental care by participating.
n The board voted to take out language in the district’s return to school Covid guidelines that forced students to quarantine after a positive test. The updated guidelines will have students and staff quarantine based on guidance from their health care provider or the county health department. The district will also only monitor cases based on advice from the Clark County Health Department instead of only monitoring when the cases reach a certain percentage of the district population.
