The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

WAITSBURG – Waitsburg and Dayton school boards brought an end to uncertainty about the proposed middle and high school Dayton-Waitsburg full athletic and activities combine at a joint school board meeting at the Waitsburg Elementary School on Monday night. In one fell swoop, both boards unanimously agreed to join into a two-year combine agreement and accepted the 38 individual action items presented by the combine advisory committee.

Following an hour of discussion at the well-attended meeting, each board, in turn, unanimously approved entering into the combine agreement with a two-year initial commitment.

The boards had planned to discuss and approve each of the 38 individual items addressing practice and game locations, coach hiring procedures and salaries and cost-share issues. Instead, they took the suggestion of Waitsburg board member Russ Knopp who motioned to approve the combine document in its entirety.

The recommendations were the result of negotiations presented by the combine advisory committee which is made up ofadministration, coaches and parents from each district. The committee has met regularly over the last year to work through specifics of the combine, but slowed negotiations after hearing that some community members in Dayton were not on board with the combine.

Students in both Dayton and Waitsburg were polled last November, with results from both districts showing a very high approval rating for the combine. However, Dayton Athletic Director and High School Principal Paul Shaber said that after hearing negative comments around town, Dayton recently took another survey which came back with a 50/50 approval rating for the combine.

The response resulted in a hold on combine negotiations while Dayton sought community input to determine the reasons behind the apparent lack of support. Now that the combine has been approved, the advisory committee will continue to work through the remaining combine logistics.

“This is somewhat of a living document. It’s still open for talk. If something doesn’t work, we’ll get back together and talk about it. We’ll probably do a lot of talking. I don’t think it’s an annual thing. I think it will be a weekly or monthly thing,” said Dayton Board Member Dan Butler.

Discussion prior to the board vote touched on cost-sharing, transportation, athlete safety and coaching issues.

Dayton parent Byron Seney asked why the agreement was only for two years, saying that a minimum four-year agreement would give coaches time to build successful programs and would give eighth graders the security of knowing they would have a program through high school.

Dayton District Superintendent Doug Johnson said one concern is that the way the WIAA classifies schools is no longer based on a set enrollment number, but is a “moving target” based on school enrollment and the total number of schools.

“If we were to have a bump in enrollment in either or both (districts) that when added together we became 1A, then that was a concern. And that would happen in two years when WIAA re-does their application,” Johnson said.

“I honestly haven’t heard a concern yet that is bad enough not to do this. There are fixes to all of them and they all can be remedied. I haven’t heard one thing that was close to important enough to even bat an eye at,” said Dayton parent and coach Jesse Mings.

“We need to go into this with a very positive attitude. We should not go into it saying, ‘Oh well, in two years it might be here and it might not.’ We need to go into it one hundred percent and we need to have the attitude in the classroom, in the home, and in the community that we’re going to make this work because it’s what is best for the kids,” said WHS teacher Nancy Bickelhaupt.