4/25/2023

(Vancouver, WA) The fall-out is beginning to happen at the 4 high schools in the Evergreen school district in Vancouver after eliminating all 4 Athletic Directors earlier this Spring. The AD’s at Mountain View, Heritage, Union and Evergreen were handed their walking papers as AD after the levy passed. All 4 were warned if the levy failed their jobs would be cut and when it passed they were cut anyway to help fill a 19-million dollar budget deficit. (For the back story on this portion of the story click here for our former post.)

The fall-out from that action began on Monday when Mountain View AD and Head Football coach Adam Mathieson announced he is stepping down as Football coach and will be leaving the district to pursue other opportunities. He was offered another job in the district but at a pay cut and it would not be at Mountain View High so he declined. The Columbian and Clark County Today both had stories on Mathieson’s decision linked below:

Story by Meg Wochnick in The Columbian

Story by Paul Valencia in Clark County Today

We also had a follow up story with WIAA Executive Director Mick Hoffman on the difficulties and potential risks of dropping an AD and trying to spread those duties around to other administrators who already have their regular duties. (You can read that story here.)

Hoffman laid out a host of duties that Athletic Directors are responsible for that could cost the district big dollars such as not following proper procedures regarding injury prevention, practice protocols and other potential liability claims that could cost the district money and many times more than it would cost to keep your AD on staff.

One issue we didn’t mention in that story regarding revenue is student retention. The State Superintendent’s office confirmed that each student enrolled in a public school is worth at least $13,000, more for special education students and another $2,500 through levies.

The question is what kind of financial loss could the Evergreen school district suffer say if just 5 students from each school who also may have younger siblings decide to move to another district they deem is more serious about sports? Losing just 20 students because of lost faith would equal a hit of $320,000 to the district. If 10 per school left or 40 students the loss would be 640k and stretching it out to an unlikely exodus of 100 the district would actually lose 1.55 million dollars in direct funding per student.

Those opposed to high school sports are likely not disappointed to lose the AD’s. A quick look at a few interesting stats include that nearly 57.4% of all high school students participated in at least one sport during their high school career. This stat comes from a survey done by the National Center for Disease Control over the time period of 1991-2019, a significant time period of measurement.

Additionally, a study done by “Project Play” laid out a host of results on how sports helps kids not only achieve better and are more likely to attend college but indications of a myriad of positive impacts on kids participating in high school sports. (Link to the Project Play study is here.) This is one of many studies on this subject.

Maybe no students will leave and there will be no issues at all at all 4 high schools and the district bean counters will be correct. But is it a good move if 20+ students leave for a another district some parents may think is more stable and dependable when it comes to sports? Is that really out of the question now days when some parents lay out 10-15-20 thousand dollars into their kids sports programs? If something tragic happens on a field because proper procedures weren’t taken? Students aren’t as successful in the classroom because the job of overseeing grades and making sure athletes are held accountable in the classroom is spread amongst a number of administrators and you lose that one-on-one interaction that many AD’s have with their athletes?

Those will be the questions that will be asked if this seemingly short-sighted decision ends up failing and costing the district more than the quick savings they will get in the short term.

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