Edited Sept. 19 re: cross country team
Denny Tilley appointed to fill vacancy
The Paton-Churdan board of education on Sept. 10 appointed veteran board member Denny Tilley to fill a vacancy created by the resignation of Brad Wilson in August. Tilley served several years on the board in the 1990s. He said he was approached about serving again because of his experience. Tilley will serve the remainder of Wilson’s term (2017).
Tilley, Steve Burrell, Dave Palmer and Jenn Maach were sworn in after the retiring board adjourned. Palmer and Burrell were elected to four year terms in the Sept. 8 school election. Burrell, an incumbent, had not filed a nominating petition but ran as a write-in candidate. Maach was elected to complete the term originated by Greg Carey. Maach had been appointed to the position after Libby Towers (appointed upon Carey’s resignation in 2014) resigned.
Deonne (Reed) Robey was the only board member not sworn in Monday night.
The board elected Burrell as president and Robey as vice president. The board did not set a regular meeting day after conversation about school activity schedules. The board will meet Monday, Oct. 10, at 6:30 pm at the Paton library, and will at that time talk about meeting dates for the following month.
School superintendent Kreg Lensch is also new to the position. Lensch, a Glidden native, was principal at Glidden-Ralston for several years before moving into the superintendent position in July after the departure of Rob Olsen. P-C has an agreement with the Glidden-Ralston district to share a superintendent on an 80-20 basis.
Paton-Churdan athletics was on the agenda as a discussion item. Now, during the fall season, P-C students play football with the Greene County team and the Rockets have their own volleyball team and cross country team. (One Glidden-Ralston student is running on the P-C team.) Paton-Churdan has always had its own basketball teams.
Lensch is looking ahead to the spring track and field season. “I don’t think we want to wait until the spring on this one,” he said.
He suggested that P-C look at sharing track with Glidden-Ralston. “Sharing with a smaller school such as Glidden-Ralston might be an option for track. Maybe not for baseball or football or anything else, but that’s where it starts,” Lensch said.
P-C athletic director Chris Petersen expects between five and 10 boys going out for track. The lone girl who was interested in track last year is a senior this year, and principal Annie Smith said there are two freshmen girls who will likely go out for track.
Burrell and Robey both said they would like to see track and field stay at Paton-Churdan. “We’re growing. We want to keep as much as we can here,” Robey said.
Lensch said it would be expensive for P-C to pay a coach and the entry fees for track meets, and that transporting athletes to Glidden would be less expensive than paying a coach.
P-C has an agreement with Greene County to share some sports, including track and field, at no cost. However, the contract has a Feb. 1 deadline for the following school year. Last winter the Greene County board turned down a request to share girls track and field due in large part to the untimeliness of the request. P-C made the request in February for the 2015 season. Under the contract, the request needed to be made a year earlier. The request for the 2016 season should have been made by last February, according to the agreement.
Lensch seemed unfamiliar with the details of the agreement with Greene County, but said the Iowa High School Athletic Association would approve a sharing proposal up until January for that same year’s season.
Lensch hopes to have a plan for the track & field season on the board’s agenda as an action item in December. Burrell reminded him that it is probably too late to share with Greene County. “We can explore some other options,” Lensch said. “The nice part about going small school to small school is you can do some things that make it easy on each other.”
