SPARTA — After hearing significant community input at its Wednesday night meeting, the Highland Local School District’s board of education opted to table, rather than approve, a controversial resignation.
Multiple attendees addressed the board to defend the character of Travis Church, a varsity assistant football and middle school baseball coach.
“This man taught all of us dignity, morals and respect,” said Lance Stambaugh, a former student and coach at Highland. “For years, he taught myself and many other people how to be a good person.”
“We’ve lost a good coach and a great man,” echoed Chad Hankins.
The public comments came shortly after the four school board members present approved the resignation of a fifth school board member, Loren Altizer. Altizer was not present at the meeting.
“It was an accusation that he was not being an ethical coach, which is completely false. Travis Church is the most ethical man I have ever met,” said Stambaugh.
According to Freund, Church had submitted his resignation after making a “disparaging comment” about a student he coached on the middle school baseball team.
“There was a message that went out to parents of his baseball team mentioning a Highland student being ‘classless’…We really don’t talk about kids in any type of format publicly. We just don’t do that. So that was the issue,” said Freund, who added that Church was very regretful for the incident.
After hearing from the public, Freund suggested that the board table Church’s resignation.
“Community voice is incredibly important to us,” Freund said after the meeting. “We really felt we had to listen to what people said to us tonight about Mr. Church… So we’re going to go back to Mr. Church and talk with him some more about his resignation.”
“I think it’s great,” said Stambaugh. “It’s a testament to how well that this board actually looked into the situation at hand and they listened to the community and came to the right conclusion.”
The board also tabled a motion to appoint a new school board member to complete Altizer’s term, which lasts the remainder of 2019. Board president Wayne Hinkle said that three candidates have applied for the position, but that the board needed more time for discussion before appointing a member.
Other business included approving a resolution of necessity, allowing the board to move forward with putting a 12 year, half mill levy on the November ballot. If the levy passes, the funds generated will be used for maintenance of the middle and high school, which were renovated in 1998 with aid from the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission.
According to district treasurer Jon Mason, the OFCC requires school districts to provide maintenance funding for any project completed with OFCC funds until the cost of the initial project is paid off.
If the levy doesn’t pass, the district will be required to redistribute funds from other levies to cover the maintenance costs.
Mason pointed out that two levies totaling .58 mills will be expiring this year, so even if the levy passes, residents will see a decrease in their taxes from last year.
The board also:
•Accepted resignations from Christina Hammond, Kristin Potter, Rebecca VanFossen, Douglas Basham and Jordan Phillips.
•Hired Laurie Kirkpatrick as elementary intervention specialist, Lauretta Duncan, Mark Nelson, Paige Stone and Allison Streby as elementary teachers, Leah Shaw as a high school language arts teacher and Trudy McClaskey as a middle school physical education and health teacher.
•Approved various fall sports coaching contracts, student handbooks and athletic event ticket fees.
•Approved a three-year contract with the Highland Education Association guaranteeing teachers 2 percent raises each year.
•Scheduled a special meeting July 1 to appoint a new school board member.
