In their defense

The accusations began immediately.

As soon as the District 117 board of education approved the hiring and/or rehiring of Jacksonville High School’s fall coaching staffs, including controversial volleyball coach Paula Stewart, angry parents and even a few shocked players denounced the board members for being unconcerned and inattentive to the welfare of the students.

The board members went into a second executive session after Wednesday’s vote to hire the coaches and could not be interviewed for Thursday’s article.

But three spoke to the Journal-Courier later. They hoped to explain the vote without revealing details of what happened for the two hours during Wednesday’s first closed session.

New board member Craig Albers was visibly uncomfortable as he cast his ‘yes’ vote to approve the rehiring of Stewart and the rest of the fall coaches.

He knew his decision would rankle his friends and supporters.

“That was probably one of the toughest votes I’ve had to do,” said Albers. “You see things one way, but then you have to do what you’re assigned to do.”

To Albers — and, in fact, many on the current board — the issue was not one of being for or against a volleyball coach, but a philosophical matter concerning the role of a school board.

“My vote (Wednesday) night, my ‘yes’ vote, was not for any single coach that was on the list,” Albers said. “It was for my superintendent and my principal and my athletic director, who came to me and made the recommendations.”

In the past, particularly in 2004 and 2005, the board was accused of overstepping its bounds when it twice attempted to turn down coaches that the Jacksonville High administration had recommended. In both instances, the board eventually backtracked and voted to reinstate the coaches who had been dismissed.

Meanwhile, the process by which coaches are evaluated by their administration was revised and strengthened, in hopes of preventing such situations in the future.

“If I believe as a board member that there are gaps and failures in the system,” said Albers, “then my responsibility is not to vote against the administration’s recommendation but to create policy that helps strengthen the mission of the district or the administration.”

Like all the fall coaches, Stewart was evaluated by JHS athletic director Mark Grounds and principal Ed Wainscott. Both of them met with disgruntled parents and players, as well as with parents and players in support of Stewart, and had meetings with the coach herself.

Board members will not publicly discuss details of personnel matters. However, board president Steve Todd chafes at the notion that the school board didn’t give the Stewart matter due attention.

Normally, the vote to approve the fall coaching staffs happens the previous January. It took the board two extra months to take that action this year.
“This board of education has been deliberating on this issue for a number of months,” said Todd. “Each individual board member has probably put in several hours apiece deliberating, reviewing, reading letters, discussing and etcetera.”

During Wednesday’s first closed session, Ron Freeman, one of the anti-Stewart parents, read a statement to the board and asked that the vote be delayed so the board could fully consider its decision.

After the vote, Freeman and other parents expressed outrage at the board for not taking enough time to deliberate on the matter before approving Stewart’s rehiring.

“They could not have done that in two hours,” Freeman said on Wednesday. “It’s impossible. They had their minds made up before they even went into closed session.”

Todd said the board heard nothing new during Wednesday’s closed session that warranted further tabling of the vote.

“A great deal of documentation and input from (Wednesday) was information that the board was already quite familiar with,” said Todd. “This hiring of fall coaches has been delayed or tabled twice, to allow board members and administrators additional time to review information.”

Todd said that, while the parents and players who want to see Stewart dismissed are more vocal, there are equally as many on the other side of the issue who have either written to or spoken to board members, and that their input has been at least as credible and compelling.

“After hearing from parents and players on both sides of the fence, and hearing the input from our administration, I felt the board made the right decision,” said Todd.

Board member Jim Bohan echoed Todd:
“The administration (Wainscott and Grounds) spent a considerable amount of time on this issue,” Bohan said. “After they had done that, they made their recommendations. In general, we have to respect the work that they’ve done and take that work very seriously.”

Bohan then noted that, while the board is reluctant to go against the administration on personnel matters, it does have a responsibility to evaluate the administrators. If a particular administrator or the evaluation process itself is revealed to be at fault, the board would prefer to deal with that separately, he said.