Hi all,
Kristen and Adam, thank you for meeting with me on Tuesday, listening to my context on our teams and our plans, and discussing potential solutions.
I understand that your preference is to work together, and I appreciate your willingness to brainstorm, discuss, and potentially implement solutions within our current framework. I mentioned a few concrete ideas that we believe would make a material difference for our programs: painting markings on the Cubberley track, budgeting $5000 for JLS track and field clinics (or $15,000 across the three middle schools), paying for food for end-of-season celebrations, and reducing registration fees. I appreciate your willingness to look into getting markings painted, and I understand that you were able to decide on the spot that the city will not consider the other ideas. Relatedly, I understand your position that any improvements within the city program would need to happen within the framework of the current budget, which, according to the spreadsheet that Chris shared, allocates 82% of the budget to compensate city staff and only 0.8% ($5000 across all sports and teams) on other contract services, which seems to be the only category from which we might expect to pay for something like clinics. Given these constraints, I understand your preference to consider lower cost solutions like a single track and field clinic open to all schools and the entire community, rather than one or more clinics for each of several track and field event groups at each middle school.
Given your constraints, we are continuing to plan to operate our own teams, which will allow us to operate without such constraints and provide what we believe will be a better experience for our student athletes. For our student athletes to have the best possible experience, we continue to seek help from ADAL, the city, and/or PAUSD to allow them to represent their schools at ADAL competitions. The help that we could use from the city would probably take two different forms depending on whether the city also has a team with student athletes, and we briefly discussed each case.
I understand that the city intends to form a team, and that you expect that team to represent JLS at ADAL. We think that it is unlikely that you will have a separate viable team with student athletes who prefer to be on that team. If you do, we would be happy to find a solution that is best for all of the student athletes, e.g. combining the teams, and we would be happy to take on additional work to coordinate that solution. If we find ourselves in that case, I hope that we can discuss that more.
In the case that the city does not form a team, I asked if you would be willing to consider consenting to allow our team to represent JLS at league competitions, because I understand that may help ADAL decide to allow our team to represent JLS. Your initial position was that in that case you would not be involved and would recommend that we "work it out with the league," but you clarified that you would have a conversation with the city manager in that case and may develop a different position.
Kristen and Adam, please let me know if you have any questions, feedback, or clarifications on this summary of what we discussed.
Jim, it seems to me that we, the city, and potentially ADAL will need to discuss more if we end up having two teams. In the meantime, I think that we can make progress in a few directions:
Discussing whether ADAL would allow our teams to represent their school if they are the only teams
Addressing your feedback about which voices would represent schools in developing meet schedules
Addressing your feedback about the responsibility to follow up on any issues that arise from coaches, players, parents, etc., that impact the league
Jim, would you be able to find time to discuss these items and any other items that you would like to discuss sometime this week? I'm currently available at any time of the day from 9am today through the end of Sunday, except for Friday between 2:30 and 5:30. Would you like to choose a time to talk on the phone?
Thank you all!
Tom
Hi Kristen, Adam, and Chris,
Our season is off to a great start, with 60 athletes registered and practicing. I have received strong positive feedback from athletes both directly and via their parents.
I understand that at least a few students plan to participate in the team that you are creating due to the greater certainty of accessing all league competitions. I would like to see if we can work together to provide the best possible experience for all JLS cross country runners, perhaps including having our teams compete together in competition.
Would you and your head coach be open to discussing how we can best support our cross country runners once you have finalized your coaching staff and had a few practices? Are you still planning for practices to start on 9/3? If so, perhaps we could schedule a meeting on or around 9/9?
Thanks!
Tom
Tom,
We are excited to start the new season of cross country. We have hired three experienced coaches and the Athletic Director and will start practice next week.
Students will need to join the City’s Middle School Athletic team if they’d like to participate in league competitions. I don’t see a scenario where students would practice as two separate teams and compete as one team. The City is only responsible for its own employees, volunteers, and enrolled participants as we are insured and conduct extensive background checks on our coaches. We have heard from parents that safety is very important to them, and we take this very seriously.
Generally, separating the kids in two different practice groups is not in the spirit of what makes a team. This has already caused considerable confusion in the community, which is not a good way to start a season. Athletics at the middle school level are intended to be a fun introduction to a sport coupled with the opportunity to learn life lessons about teamwork, good sportsmanship, confidence, respecting both winners and losers, among so many others. I’m afraid the current situation will overshadow all of that, which is very unfortunate as the kids are the ones who won’t benefit from a full single team.
Again, I am offering you the opportunity to work with us on making improvements to the City’s program rather than having two separate programs. I think it’s the best path forward for our student athletes.
Kristen
Hi Kristen,
Thank you for your reply.
I'm disappointed that you're declining to discuss how we can best support all JLS cross country runners.
I share your concern about separating JLS runners into two practice groups. It seems to me that the best solution to that problem would be for you to consent to our team representing JLS at ADAL competitions. That would likely result in runners consolidating into a single practice group. I have discussed the options transparently with runners and families and repeatedly asked for any feedback and concerns. Among all of the runners and families I have discussed this with, 61 prefer to be on our team (and are registered and practicing), 2 are joining the city team because of the greater certainty it provides for competing in ADAL meet schedule, and 2 are joining to be on the same team as the other 2. What do you think of implementing that solution? Or would you be open to discussing it?
We did discuss the idea of making improvements within the city program at our 7/9 meeting, which I summarized in an email on 7/11 (also copied below). Has your position changed?
I understand that your preference is to work together, and I appreciate your willingness to brainstorm, discuss, and potentially implement solutions within our current framework. I mentioned a few concrete ideas that we believe would make a material difference for our programs: painting markings on the Cubberley track, budgeting $5000 for JLS track and field clinics (or $15,000 across the three middle schools), paying for food for end-of-season celebrations, and reducing registration fees. I appreciate your willingness to look into getting markings painted, and I understand that you were able to decide on the spot that the city will not consider the other ideas. Relatedly, I understand your position that any improvements within the city program would need to happen within the framework of the current budget, which, according to the spreadsheet that Chris shared, allocates 82% of the budget to compensate city staff and only 0.8% ($5000 across all sports and teams) on other contract services, which seems to be the only category from which we might expect to pay for something like clinics. Given these constraints, I understand your preference to consider lower cost solutions like a single track and field clinic open to all schools and the entire community, rather than one or more clinics for each of several track and field event groups at each middle school.
Thanks!
Tom