In a five to three vote Thursday night, the Cumberland County Board of Education voted to create a new full-time Athletic and Activities Director position to oversee district extracurricular programs and address student eligibility concerns.
The decision followed public comments regarding student athletes losing eligibility due to zoning issues, prompting a debate on how to best manage compliance. Board members questioned Director of Schools Rebecca Farley how the position would be funded.
“Mr. Matthews did make a good point,” Farley said, “We haven’t hired for the Chief Academic Officer and that salary’s still in there.”
The board discussed the need for a dedicated individual to ensure consistent oversight across the district.
Kayla Willis addressed the board regarding 13 students who were removed from teams due to zoning issues after already playing this season. The board subsequently voted to bypass a proposed committee and instead hire a full-time director to manage these programs. Director Farley said the district currently has athletic directors only at the high school level.
“We have as a board established clearly that one quarter of our strategic plan is to be focused on academics in the field of athletics and activities,” Board member Nicholas Davis said. “It is an additional classroom setting, and we have no measurable goal that has been met since this has been established.”
The newly created position will oversee athletics as well as arts and music programs throughout the school system. Board members said that a single coordinator is necessary to manage logistics and resources that are currently handled by individual teachers.
“If they could get them all on one bus that’s money savings for each group,” Davis said. “So that’s two groups having to pay for an extra bus where if you had a coordinator that could just help coordinate the transportation for those groups, that could just help get everybody together to coordinate their planned activities.”
The board determined that funding for the new role would be reallocated from the vacant Chief Academic Officer budget line. Dr. Farley noted that the district previously employed five athletic directors but currently operates with only two.
Dr. Farley said she will present a job description and salary information for the position at the upcoming work session.