1 Golden Bomber Dr.
Ilion, NY 13357
Phone: 315.894.9934
Fax: 315.894.2716
Superintendent
Committee explores buildings and sports
The Community Advisory Committee met for the sixth time on Wednesday, May 18, this time at Herkimer Junior-Senior High School. (view PDF of the agenda)
The evening began with an optional tour to familiarize committee members with the Herkimer facility and to help them envision how the building could be used in a possible merger.
The first order of business was to look at the committee's prime building use plan. (view a PDF of the building use plan) Following up on work at previous meetings where the members examined class sizes, building capacities, and building layout, the group developed nine possible options for using the districts' buildings in a merged district. The committee had voted to reduce the nine options to four. These four choices will be passed on the each district's leadership team (the superintendent and other key school officials) for their review and comment.
The group then settled down to tackle the evening’s big question—what opportunities and challenges in athletics and co-curricular activities might exist in a merged school district. Athletic directors, high school principals, and district superintendents from each of the districts were on hand to help answer questions related to the topic. (view PDF of what is currently offered in each district)
Members asked guests a variety of questions including:
Have students expressed interest in a sport that your school doesn’t offer? If so, why don’t you offer it?
Students would like to play lacrosse, but there are few local schools offering it and we would have no competition. In addition, it would draw athletes from other spring sports leaving those sports without enough players.
What five sports could you envision adding if the districts were merged?
Ice hockey, lacrosse, swimming, skiing, and gymnastics. In addition to new sports we could expand our sports to include full modified and junior varsity squads and possibly intramurals.
How many students would there be in a combined district? Where would we compete?
New York determines sports classes by the total population of students in grades 10-12 (the potential number of varsity athletes). A combined district would have 1196 students making us a AA school. We could compete in any league that would accept us, but in postseason play, we would compete against schools such as Proctor, Rome Free Academy, and the larger Syracuse schools.
What athletic facilities does your school currently offer?
Ilion—an extensive fitness center, college regulation-sized gymnasium, second full-sized gymnasium, indoor track, outdoor track, lighted football field, lighted soccer field, two wrestling/multi-purpose rooms, baseball field, and tennis courts. Frankfort-Schuyler—outdoor track, lighted soccer/football field, baseball field, softball field, tennis courts, college regulation-sized gymnasium, second full-sized gymnasium, weight room. Herkimer—four soccer fields, baseball field, softball field, lighted tennis courts, lighted tack, practice football field, three gymnasiums, pool, fitness center, access to facilities at Herkimer County Community College. Mohawk—fitness center, two gymnasiums, lighted soccer/football field, lighted softball diamond, field hockey field, modified fields, outdoor track.
Why are there so few clubs and co-curricular activities for middle school/junior high students?
In the current configuration, it is difficult to mix grades 7-8 with grades 9-12.
Brainstorming the pros and cons
The meeting then broke into three subcommittees (program, finance, and operations) who brainstormed opportunities and challenges of merging athletics and co-curricular activities. The three groups reconvened to share their findings.
Following are the findings:
Opportunities
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More sports offerings with more levels of competition
- Possible introduction of intramurals
- Specialized coaching—i.e. offensive and defensive line coaches in football
- Ability to incorporate a focus on health and nutrition in relation to sports
- Specialized clubs Heightened competition leading to increased skill levels
- Marching band More opportunities through expanded co-curriculars —debate teams, games clubs, etc.
- Reinstating programs lost by attrition or cut due to budget issues
- Orchestra
- Combining redundant programs saving on coach/advisor stipends
- Cyber clubs, Advanced Technology clubs and competitions
- Merger is needed to simply maintain existing programs
- Larger size opens door to corporate grants and sponsorship
- More choices Increased competition fosters excellence
- Improved individual exposure to college level coaches and programs
- Fields and facilities for practice space
- Opportunity to teach students by the example we set in the investigation and implementation of a merger
- Future funding pressures without a merger
Challenges
- Start up costs—new equipment, logos, etc.
- Different cultures, philosophies, procedures (ie. Do you cut athletes from a team?)
- Selecting coaches and advisors from existing pool
- Transition from rivals to teammates; what to do with duplicate facilities
- Tradition and local identity associated with athletic programs/parent and alumni acceptance of a change
- Increased travel distance to competition
- Loss of jobs
- Need for “cuts”
- Hidden cost of combining cultures— What will the program look like? Who will mediate?
- Is there physical room for everything?
- What happens to the less capable athletes?
- Increased opportunity does not guarantee increased participation
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Increased travel time and late nights—impact on academics
Upcoming meetings will address the major elements of each district’s employee contracts and their related costs. The group will also begin looking at long-term district finances.
