Arcadia school board opts against adding new admin position

The Arcadia School District will not have a designated athletic director or dean of students for the 2023-24 school year.

Athletic director duties will be split between Superintendent Lance Bagstad and high school principal Wyatt Anderson for this school year, continuing the work from last school year. Both Bagstad and Anderson will receive a $10,000 stipend for that work.

Bagstad told the Arcadia school board last Monday that the district had received nine applicants for a potential athletic director and dean of students administrative position, one that would have paid $65,000 and not required an administrative license.

The school board, though, voted 3-2 against adding the position. Board members Diana Tempski, Dana Conrad and Tonya Rebhahn opposed the addition, with Paul Servais and Rodney Walters in favor of the add. Brian Steinlicht was absent.

“What it would amount to is that person handling attendance and discipline between the middle school and the high school, helping with supervision in the morning before school, after school, lunch room, breakfast breaks, things like that, and then would assist Wyatt as athletic director and they would pick up a lot of that piece and then that will drop away for me,” Bagstad told the board in his description of the position.

The attendance pieces will continue to fall on middle school principal Andrea Eisner after Monday’s vote. Bagstad proposed the new position after the district found out associate high school principal John White is leaving the district — the board unanimously approved White’s resignation on Monday.

Bagstad said proposing the position in a way that would not require an administrative license was intentional given staffing difficulties in public education across the country.

“Without that position it is going to have Andrea in charge of 350-plus students and 60-plus staff and have Wyatt at the high school in charge of 450 students and about 100 staff, so that’s a lot, especially if any big issues come up that have to be dealt with. With only one person, that does limit some of the ability to do some of those things,” Bagstad told the Times last Wednesday.

School board President Paul Servais said the proposed position has existed in the district previously but has not been titled the same.

“I’m in favor of this,” Servais said. “The last thing I want to see us do is burnout our administrative team as well as our staff and it seems to me education has changed so much the last few years. ... these buildings unfortunately, they take more people to manage the kids and and the staff.”

Rebhahn, however, said she has heard from residents that the district already has too many administrative staff members.

“They have said when it comes to the budget and everything that there is more administrative staff in this building now than there’s ever been in the past,” Rebhahn said, “and so I know the community members are against all the administrative staff we have, but I also know they’re not in here doing the work.”

With the failed proposal, the district will hire game managers to help take some of that work from Anderson and Bagstad to avoid burnout.

Tempski asked why the district would not make the position head athletic director and dean of students, but Anderson said he enjoys the athletic director work and feels it keeps that athletic office stable.

Tempski later said the board is on the “Wyatt fan bus” for the work he does for the district.

Replacing Anderson with a new hire as head athletic director would still require Anderson to be assistant athletic director to help teach software and management, he said.

“I feel like there are things that we’re doing that we’re making progress in. I don’t like the idea of rotating through ADs,” he told the board.

Servais said having too many administrators is an argument districts hear regardless of staffing numbers.

“The arguments that you’re hearing, that we all hear, they’re as old as education,” Servais said.

“A lot of times a teaching staff is always going to tell you there’s too much administration in their building, and the public that doesn’t see what’s going on day to day is going to tell you the same thing. One thing I as a board, what we have to think about is what’s best for the students in the Arcadia School District first before all that other stuff.”

The other ‘no’ vote came from Conrad, who said she wants to ensure current staff are compensated well if there is extra staffing money available.

“We need to look at what the budget is going to be and I think we really need to look at what we’re paying, especially our paraprofessionals, because that is also affecting our students with the turnover that we’re having,” Conrad said.

“So to me if it comes to paying the paraprofessionals more and not filling this position, That’s where I’m at right now because that really affects especially our special needs kids or kids who need the extra attention.”