The Shadow
LOW MOOR — The Virginia High School League probably won’t allow varsity sports teams at Alleghany and Covington High Schools to combine next year, even though the city and county school divisions will merge in July.
That’s the message an official from the VHSL delivered to the Joint School Services Committee Wednesday at a meeting in Low Moor. The committee, which has representation from Alleghany County and Covington, crafted the plan to merge the school divisions. The joint division will be called Alleghany Highlands Public Schools.
The school boards and administrations will merge in July 2022. However, the movement of students to different school facilities will not occur until the fall of 2023. Alleghany High School in Valley Ridge will become the joint high school. Covington High School will become the joint middle school. It will carry the name Covington Middle School. All elementary schools in the county and city will remain open.
But with the COVID-19 pandemic and a trend of declining enrollment, athletic teams at the two high schools are being impacted by low participation numbers. Neither school is fielding a girl’s junior varsity basketball team this year. Covington High School will not be fielding a wrestling team. CHS will also not be competing in cross county and girl’s soccer. In the fall, there was concern that Covington would not be able to field a football team.
“We do have difficulty fielding enough members of each team,” Covington Superintendent Melinda Snead-Johnson said.
Last month, Covington Mayor Tom Sibold questioned if the VHSL would allow athletic teams at the two high schools to combine in the fall of 2022.
Tom Dolan, associate director for the VHSL, said the organization would frown at that idea, out of concern that a precedent would be set for other schools to combine athletics with a goal of creating a “super team.”
However, Dolan noted that in 1994, the VHSL ruled that athletes could participate in combined practices if the sport centers on individual competition. For instance, a CHS cross country runner would be allowed to practice with the AHS cross country team, but the runner would compete under the CHS banner.
“You would not be doing anything unusual under that scenario,” he said.
The 1994 VHSL decision came when Mount Rogers High School was down to 30 students and it was in the process of combining with Grayson County.
“That decision allowed for combined practices and coaches,” Dolan said.
Nonetheless, he suggested that Alleghany County and Covington schools consider filing a request with the VHSL for permission to combine junior varsity teams next year. If a formal request is filed with the VHSL’s executive committee by February, a decision may be made by May, he said.
“Everything we have talked about so far has validity to be considered,” Dolan said. “But it will have some opposition because it is new and it hasn’t been talked about.”
The request, he said, must center on the desire to ensure that athletes at the high schools are not deprived of the opportunity to compete in junior varsity sports.
As the July 2022 merger draws closer, an early-retirement incentive package will not be offered in the 2022-2023 school year. The Joint School Services Committee has planned to offer the incentive package to create efficiency through reduced personnel costs. The plan was to reduce personnel costs through attrition, such as retirements.
But both school divisions are experiencing vacancies due to higher-than-expected turnover in personnel. Schools are having a more difficult time filling teaching vacancies and substitute teachers are hard to find.
“At this time, there does not appear to be a reason to start an early retirement incentive package,” said Jacob Wright, chairman of the Alleghany County School Board and co-chairman of the Joint Schools Services Committee.
Alleghany Superintendent Kimberly Halterman said that as she and Snead-Johnson are working together to make the merger go smoothly, they are discovering ways to achieve cost efficiencies sooner than expected.
Before implementing any measures, the superintendents will draft memorandums of understanding to be considered by the city and county school boards. The memorandums will be reviewed by legal counsel before they are submitted to the school boards.
Halterman and Snead-Johnson are continuing to review policy manuals from each school division and Jackson River Technical Center. Detailed work is also underway on developing a curriculum for the joint school division.
“A lot of positive steps are happening right now to make this a go July 1,” Snead-Johnson said.
A temporary logo has been developed to use on stationery for the joint division. The logo is a derivative of the Alleghany County school logo. The logo simply replaces the word county with Highlands. It also reflects the color scheme of the joint school division, which was chosen by students.
“It would be a good place to start,” Halterman said.
The superintendents estimate that paying a firm to develop a new logo will cost less than $10,000.
Covington City Manager Krystal Onaitis said a new website will eventually be needed as part of a rebranding of the joint school division. She said a website and a new logo would probably cost around $20,000.
“We will just move forward with this temporary logo for the time being,” Sibold said.
The mayor said major decisions will be made by the joint school board, which will be seated July 1. The school board will have four members from Alleghany County and three from Covington.
