Colby school board approves new sports teams
By Nathaniel Underwood
The Colby School Board decided to move forward with several changes to the sports offered by the district at their most recent meeting on Monday, moving to adopt a new co-op girls varsity wrestling team and middle school baseball and softball teams with Abbotsford and upgrading the archery club to official club status.
The growing popularity of girls wrestling prompted the change in the co-op’s handling of the program. Girls have been wrestling at the two schools for years, but the change will give them their own team, rather than being part of a combined varsity wrestling squad with the boys team. The increase in interest in the sport has led to more members, as well as more opportunities for girls, including separate varsity tournaments and the potential for dual meets for girls teams.
These changes have posed new challenges for coaching staff with combined teams like the Colby/Abby squad last season.
“It used to be where we might have one or two girls on our team and we could take them along to the boys tournaments and the girls have a separate tournament on the side and we would just make it work,” head wrestling coach Steven Wozniak said at the meeting. “Same with dual meets. Now, because girls wrestling is growing so much, girls are now competing (in tournaments) on Friday night and the boys are competing on Saturday. The boys dual meets are on Thursday and girls dual meets are on Tuesday.”
“So that would have us with Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at competitions,” he continued. “And then you have different preparations. If the girls have to compete on Tuesday, Monday practice is going to look a lot different. And then which coach do we send? Do we send an assistant coach and now we are only sending assistant coaches to girls meets? That’s not fair.”
Wozniak noted that they had an assistant coach take over the girls’ team last year and that he would be interested in taking over as the head varsity coach.
“We feel that the growth of the program will be more likely if girls are able to wrestle with girls and participate in their own practice facility with their own practice time,” superintendent Patrick Galligan added.
“I think a lot of schools are going to start moving this way,” Wozniak said. “Just because you have a coach going to Shawano and not getting back until midnight on Friday and then they are expected to turn around and get up at five to go to Eau Claire the next day. It’s just not going to be sustainable for people to keep doing that.”
In addition to the new varsity co-op, the board also discussed the creation of two spring middle school programs with Abbotsford for baseball and softball.
“All entities feel that we will have greater numbers at the high school level if we establish baseball and softball programs at the middle school level,” Galligan said of his talks with Abbotsford and the two establishment’s respective booster clubs.
While booster club teams have been available for seventh and eighth graders, both schools had only offered track as a spring sport option for their students. The hope is that by offering a co-op school team, the interest in the sports will continue through middle school and give students more choice in athletic programs in the spring.
Some questions over potential costs for the new teams were raised by the board.
“There would be some additional cost because of bussing, for umpires, and coaches,” Galligan said. “We have some uniforms to use, but eventually there would probably be some equipment charges. And there would be added work for our athletic directors as well.”
Members of the board were also curious if there were enough middle school baseball and softball programs in the area that the new teams could find opponents to compete against for games.
“It’s hit and miss,” athletic director Bryon Graun said. “Some schools have it, some don’t. We asked that question last fall of the schools in the conference and all 18 schools didn’t have softball and baseball. We’re looking at about a dozen games for each at most. Volleyball and basketball we do about 10, so around the same.”
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As with the varsity sports, Colby will host the softball team while Abbotsford will host the baseball team.
The board also approved a proposal to give official school club status to the archery club.
“We don’t usually officially recognize a club as a club at the building level until they build up a participation base, until they can prove they are going to have a sustained program over several years,” Galligan explained. “We feel like, based upon the numbers we had in the program this year alone, we feel pretty good about moving forward.”
In its first season, the club had 17 students participate, with students ranging from fourth grade to high school, with more expressing interest. The equipment used by the club is also used by the physical education departments, where students can learn the basics of safety and general form.
Archery has also seen an uptick in popularity, with Wozniak noting that other school programs are quite large and that he could see an increase in participation at Colby if more equipment was purchased to allow it. Because of the potential growth, he said he believes it would be a good idea to make the team an official school club so that the school could assist with the administration aspects of the team.
“Knowing that it could grow so fast, there needs to be somebody over top to make sure everything is going right and so it’s not all on (head coach) Allison (Rau),” Wozniak said. “That’s why I really think it needs to be a school club. If there is an issue, it is most likely going to come back to the school anyway because it’s school kids using school equipment and they are using the school facilities.”
“This way, if it’s a club, we can make sure they are academically eligible,” he added. “If it’s not a club activity, they could fail every class and still participate. They have to follow the (athletic) code. If there are any discipline issues, anything like that, it doesn’t fall on Allison, it would fall on the school. Screening coaches as well, if more people want to get involved, should be on the school.”
Other business
■ The board approved a 10-cent increase to the school lunch and breakfast rates for the coming school year. While the rates had increased last year as well, Galligan noted that it had been several years between increases before that. He also stated that the district adminstration uses a formula provided by the state to determine what the prices for meals provided by the school should be.
■ Changes to the K-12 math curriculum were approved at the board meeting, with the district deciding to go through three different companies across different age groups. After evaluations by the district’s teachers, kindergarten and first grade will use curriculum from Amplify, grades 2 through 5 will use Imagine Learning and grades 6-12 will go through McGraw Hill.
The different curriculums were chosen based on the needs of each age group, according to Galligan, with the district deciding to go with Amplify for the youngest students because it was less digital than some of the other curriculums. Imagine Learning was chosen because it was more hands-on and interactive and had digital tools in English and Spanish for teachers to utilize with the technology that the district currently has at those levels. McGraw Hill was seen as the first or second choice by many middle and high school math teachers and also has connections with Northcentral Technical College curriculum and dual credit courses.
■ The board approved a joint contract with Abbotsford for online counseling services with Uwill to help address mental health concerns for students. The program is seen as an option to bridge the gap until a student can meet with a counselor in person or as an alternative if the student preferred meeting online rather than in person. Long wait times for counseling were cited as one reason for making the move. More details can be found on page 1.
■ Next month’s regular board meeting date was changed to Monday, July 14, rather than its normal third Monday of the month. The time will remain the same, beginning at 6:30 p.m.
