The Cumberland County Schools elementary 6-8 basketball program will not be eliminated, for now.
The Cumberland County Board of Education voted to amend the agenda at the January meeting and strike the matter of eliminating the basketball program.
Director of Schools Rebecca Farley recommended maintaining the elementary 3-5 basketball and eliminating the program for grades 6-8 due to lack of participation. Her recommendation included maintaining the middle school feeder teams.
Chairman Scott VanWinkle, 2nd District, made a motion to amend the agenda stating he was unable to find a policy that supported the school board voting on this matter.
“The only policy I could find relating to that after the work session was 4.300,” said VanWinkle. “It states that ‘The board shall initially approve each specific extracurricular activity so that proper support and supervision may be assured.’”
VanWinkle said that the word ‘initially approve’ caught his attention. He said he couldn’t find a policy that states the board would need to vote on removing extracurricular activities that had been previously approved.
Jon Matthews, 7th District, said he was concerned about not being able to vote on the elimination of the 6-8 basketball team.
“So then we would have no say as far as whether it gets removed or taken away?” asked Matthews. “It would just be solely up to the director?”
VanWinkle said that was how he interpreted the policy. He said the teams didn’t have enough participation and the board did not have to vote on the extracurricular activities.
“We’re going to punish the schools that have something going on, [and] take it away from the children?” asked Anita Hale, 4th District.
VanWinkle explained that by striking the item from the agenda, it would eliminate the need to vote on the removal of the program.
Additionally, VanWinkle said that in the board policy 4.300, school principals are responsible for the decisions regarding extracurricular activities.
“My take on that is from our strategic plan that we’ve been working on and creating – we want to involve more students in extracurricular activities,” said VanWinkle.
Sheri Nichols, 3rd District, said that from year to year the amount of kids changes. She also said that in certain years, there can be fewer kids than the next year.
VanWinkle said the board’s intention is to “involve as many students and extracurriculars as we can.”
“You know, it’s unfortunate that some schools don’t have enough participation, but some of those students are participating in other areas of the county,” said VanWinkle. “Middle school athletics would be one of those. But I think as long as there’s students that want to participate, we should support that.”
VanWinkle said Farley sent the board data on the participation in the elementary basketball program.
VanWinkle said data shows a low participation from female athletes in elementary basketball programs for 6-8 grades.
Data provided show an estimated 1,520 students in those 6-8 grades. Of that number, 120 participate in elementary basketball. Ninety-one of those students are boys.
VanWinkle said no data was provided on how many cheerleaders cheer for basketball games. VanWinkle assumed an average of 10-15 students participated in cheerleading.
He said, including the assumed number of cheerleaders, approximately 15% of the 6-8 grade students participate in basketball season.
“So for us to say we want to involve students and have a goal to actually improve extracurriculars and arts of 2% on our strategic plan, cutting out 15% would not be something … that would be counterintuitive to what we’re trying to do with our strategic plan,” said VanWinkle.
Matthews said his additional concern with the amendment to the agenda was that the people who signed up for public comments would no longer be allowed to speak on the subject.
According to board policy 1.404, all public comments must be directly associated with an item on the agenda.
If the agenda item is removed before public comments, the public would no longer be allowed to speak on it per board policy.
VanWinkle made the motion to strike the item from the agenda, and Chris King, 6th District, supported the motion. The board unanimously approved the amendment to the agenda.
Elizabeth Stull, 1st District, and Shannon Stout, 9th District, were both absent.
Farley told the Chronicle Thursday that the basketball program will be on the agenda for February’s work session.