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Students can bowl this winter
- Published: September 25, 2014
Bowling is back. At its meeting Sept. 11, the Yellow Springs School Board approved a proposal to make bowling the newest official sport at Yellow Springs High School. The proposal was put forth by new YSHS/McKinney Athletic Director Nathaniel (Nate) Baker, who said that interest in the winter sport would likely exceed the minimum numbers necessary to form a team.
“It’s the fastest growing [Ohio High School Athletic Association] sport — like lacrosse was 10 years ago,” Baker told the board. The league requires six members to field a team, which can be co-ed. “Yellow Springs will likely have a lot more interest than six.”
Baker recommended that the district ease into the sport the first year, allowing for the possibility of a girls and a boys team in the future if students show a big interest.
Bowling provides a niche for students who aren’t interested in the other two winter sports, basketball and swimming, Baker said. And bowling isn’t difficult or expensive to support, he said.
“I’ve done this with Beavercreek — bowling is one of easiest sports, logistically and financially,” he said.
Yellow Springs is considering using Beaver-Vu Bowl as the home court, which charges $150 per bowler per season for up to three events per week (practices and matches.) Membership could be reduced depending on the level of individual or school-wide participation, Baker said.
A group of high school students started bowling as a club last year, after which about 20 students expressed interest in forming an official school team.
In other board business:
• The board approved the hiring of several new staff members including Baker as athletic director, Melissa Galliger as assistant treasurer, and Chastity Miller as Mills Lawn special education instructional aide.
• The board signed on to a grant request to Yellow Springs Endowment for Education for a West African drum line course taught during the Children’s Center After School Program at Mills Lawn. Teacher and parent Darren Gilley will lead the series at an estimated cost of $4,800 for drum rental and two instructors.
• Mills Lawn has pushed back its all-school musical to once every third year, Principal Matt Housh told the board. This year the school plans to hold a smaller performance piece in the fall with YS Kids Playhouse instructor Ara Beal and a spring concert led by music teacher Jo Frannye Reichert and the Antioch College Theater Department.
Ohio’s new casino tax revenues have generated about half as much as they were predicted to produce. The district is now receiving about $25 per student from the activity, which is now producing less income than last year.
• In response to a request from two outside school districts, Yellow Springs recently opened its schools to visitors from Talawanda and Perry Local school districts, who were interested in the local district’s project-based education model.
• In October, former state superintendent Susan Zelman will come to Yellow Springs to talk with school leaders about school-wide assessments and the possibility of testing exemptions.
• The district will hold its own public discussion with parents, teachers and the community about the amount of testing local students should be required to take. The meeting is on Monday, Sept. 22, at 7 p.m. at Mills Lawn School gym.
• In October district staff will be involved in ALICE training, designed to help personnel respond to the threat of intruders in the building.
• Board member Sean Creighton gave a brief update on the district’s strategic plan goal to find new revenue sources to supplement the curricular transition. The advancement committee, led by district administrators, alumni and paid staff member Naomi (Sikes-Gilbert) Bongorno will focus on providing opportunities for the school’s decades of alumni to contribute back to the district. The district’s private YSCAPE fund is supporting the building of a fundraising structure.
• Greene County Career Center board liaison Steve Conn (who replaced Sylvia Ellison) reported that the career center is dealing with a conflict with its HVAC installation partners. The disagreement may soon reach an impasse, Conn said.
• On a recommendation from board member Conn, the board agreed to request that a representative from Village Council meet regularly with a school board representative to talk about issues of common interest or concern. Such issues might be property tax collection, tax revenue and development, and athletic facilities located on Village property but used by the schools.
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