At its January 23rd meeting, the Kenyon-Wanamingo School Board discussed the possibility of contracting the services of an athletic trainer from Mayo Clinic Rochester Sports Medicine Center for all home athletic events. After a lengthy debate about the benefits of such a contract versus the costs, the Board voted to approve the contract.
The move comes at the urging of the Minnesota State High School League that all schools have an athletic trainer on site for all varsity and junior varsity games. The wrestling team at KW had a trainer present at all home matches for the last two years and the football team had trainer present for games last year as well. The agreement states that Mayo will provide a registered athletic trainer twice a week to provide evaluation and initial treatment of minor to urgent injuries to athletes grades 9 through 12. The trainer would be at the school for 90 minutes and be paid $27.50 per hour.
The contract also states that Mayo will provide a trainer at times outside of events to work with athletes’ rehab and treatment and to provide coaches with additional training. The cost of this service is $700 per term, but would be prorated for this term due to the fact that the winter sports season is already in progress.
After some discussion and debate about the necessity of having the trainer provide time outside of events, the motion was amended to approve only the event services for the time being. Coaches, however, will be consulted and the $700 per term service may be approved in the future if they deem it necessary.
Also discussed at the meeting was a proposal by Principal Brent Ashland to eliminate the block schedule that the school currently uses on Thursdays and Fridays and return to a traditional eight-period day like the one used the rest of the week.
There were many factors to consider when discussing the issue. Foremost among these factors was the fact the KW is a member of the Wasioja Education Technology Cooperative with Zumbrota-Mazeppa and Goodhue schools and the block scheduling caused conflicts for some KW students. The other two schools have regular eight-period days and, on days the KW students were supposed to participate in interactive TV classes, students were forced to choose which class they would attend. Ashland pointed out that this problem affected KW students enrolled in AP classes.
Other concerns were that some subjects are too intensive to retain students’ attention for the full 90 minutes in the block scheduling. The changing schedule halfway through the week is also confusing for students, parents and staff. A benefit of changing back would allow for cancellations and events to impact only two periods of class instead of just one. According to Ashland, the faculty overwhelmingly supports the scheduling changes.
The Board voted to approve the change, which will take effect in Fall of the 2012 school year.
