Williamsfield will coop golf, volleyball

By JEFF LAMPE
Weekly Post Staff Writer

WILLIAMSFIELD – The last all Williamsfield High School sports will become part of cooperative agreements starting next school year.

The Williamsfield School Board voted 5-1 Monday night to expand the school’s Mid-County coop – which includes ROWVA and Galva – to include high school golf. The board also voted to expand the ROWVA-Williamsfield coop to include high school volleyball and middle school baseball, softball and track and field.

Volleyball and golf had been the last high school sports solely fielded by Williamsfield, and the change has been fodder for a fair amount of discussion.

“The hard thing is we’ve got numbers to support volleyball on our own,” Superintendent Tim Farquer said. “That’s the difficult one for people. And really, in golf you don’t need numbers to go out and compete as an individual.”

Board member April Bouchez voted against the cooperative agreements. Chuck Ingle was not present due to a work emergency.

Farquer said the change is due in part to a growing realization that Williamsfield has benefitted from expanded sports opportunities via coops without having “to give much from our end.”

He listed football, cross country, track and field and girls basketball as sports Williamsfield can offer thanks to the coops – agreements the board also voted to extend for two more years.

“I think the real positive thing that came out of this is that all parties are starting to compromise and give and take so more of our kids have better opportunities,” Farquer said.

Some have said the latest coops will make it harder for Williamsfield athletes to participate in sports, even though final approval of the agreements hinges on a no-cut policy for all sports.

“It could be argued now that it means more and that everything you earn means a little more now that you need to work harder to attain it,” Farquer said.

Farquer said the three communities in the Mid-County coop are forming a ninemember governing body to “field concerns from community members and to work together so summer sports and youth sports have a little more cohesion.”

In other business, Farquer said school administration will work with the Williamsfield Education Association on new metrics to allow for increased in-person school attendance. Currently, about onethird of Williamsfield students are enrolled in remote learning, one-third are in school on A days and one-third are in school on B days. The plan had been to allow students to receive in-person schooling five days per week once all teachers were vaccinated.

“Knox County is just not receiving the amount of vaccines to get all the public school teachers vaccinated,” Farquer said, noting he does not see that happening soon. “We are going to work with the WEA leadership to allow us to expand to that next layer of kids.”

In personnel, the board voted to hire Natalie Krogull as a full-time certified instructor with ELA assignment and Jennifer Erickson of Oneida as a full-time certified speech pathologist and early language intervensionist. Krogull is a Knox College graduate from Fayetteville, Ark.

Finally, negotiations with WEA for a new teacher’s contract are scheduled from March 16 and 18.