Athletic Combine Moves Ahead

WAITSBURG—The Waitsburg School Board voted unanimously Monday night to reverse their previous action not to proceed with the full athletic combine with Dayton.

The special board meeting was held after the Dayton School Board last week urged Waitsburg to reconsider its earlier decision. On Feb. 14, the Waitsburg board backed away from the combine, after members and administrators had attended a contentious Feb. 12 advisory committee meeting in Dayton in which several members of the public angrily said they opposed the combine.

On behalf of the Dayton school board, Chairman Dan Butler told the Waitsburg board, “The (Dayton) Board has agreed. We always have, and we are restating that.”

The Waitsburg decision included three caveats:

There is to be a full combine for both middle school and high school.

Waitsburg won’t accept having all the games at just one school.

There is to be a mode of decorum at the advisory committee meetings, with an emphasis on getting the details hammered out before the start of the 2018-19 school year.

Waitsburg board chair Ross Hamann said he still had some concerns going forward. “Non-support can tear things down,” he said. “We need to band together to overcome it.”

About 50 people attended the emotionally charged Dayton board meeting on Feb. 21. Mainly, they were perplexed by how a plan that had joint approval by both boards, and an advisory committee to work out the details, ended up in the rubbish bin.

School officials were urged to repair the damage done by a few Dayton community members at the Feb. 12 advisory meeting, which led to Waitsburg’s decision to step away from the combine.

One hot button topic was a proposal by Dayton Superintendent Doug Johnson to remove the middle school from the full combine. Johnson explained that was just one of several proposals he made to address some complex transportation issues.

The importance of a full combine for middle school students, and the criticality of students playing within their own age group, was stressed by those at the Dayton board meeting.

Dayton student Callie White said she played on a varsity team when she was a freshman. “I knew I should have had that year on JV to grow,” she said. “It’s imperative for this to go through. To build a program you’ve got to have the numbers.”

Participants at that meeting felt the Waitsburg school board had been pushed into their decision by a couple of noisy coaches and a handful of parents who did not represent the whole community.

While some coaches have spoken about concerns, particularly around additional time requirements, and while a few resignations have been tendered, coaches at the meeting were mostly positive about the need to move forward.

Coach Clay Hutchens called on the community to “disregard the rumor mill and to work off of facts, and move forward.”

Former Dayton school board director Dan Andrews said, “We’re going to have coaches. It is about moving forward.”

School officials were urged to allow the advisory committee to work out the details, and to not give airplay to the handful of parents and coaches with negative feelings about the combine.

WSD Board Director Randy Pearson told the Dayton board that, although he wasn’t at the school board meeting when things fell apart for the combine, he has heard about the negative comments at the advisory committee meeting.

“It was a most gut-wrenching decision,” he said of Waitsburg’s decision. “Some of us are strongly opposed to pulling out.”

Pearson urged the Dayton board last week to act quickly because Waitsburg needed to notify the WIAA Dist. 9, of its 1B League status.