School board approves sports agreement; Plumas Charter students will play for Greenville High School if MOU is reached
By Debra Moore
Any Plumas Charter student who opts to play sports during the 2022-23 school year will play for Greenville High School — that includes students from Chester and Quincy, as well as those who reside in Indian Valley.
The Plumas Unified School District Board of Trustees voted unanimously May 26 to allow Indian Valley high school students to play together after receiving a barrage of phone calls and emails advocating for joint sports teams in Indian Valley. To accommodate such a request — one of the entities needed to forego its CIF participation — and Plumas Charter opted to do so. During the meeting Plumas Charter Executive Director Taletha Washburn indicated that Plumas Charter students would be willing to travel to Greenville to play sports.
Before taking the vote, the school board members discussed the decision as well as the correspondence that had been received, which they said included threats, disrespectful language, and divisiveness.
Trustee Leslie Edlund said, “So it feels to me that we are at a crossroads for education in Indian Valley. We have been for years.” She went on to say that the decision they were making feels bigger than just sports and that it would have both long-term and short-term implications.
Edlund reiterated her commitment to K-12 education in Indian Valley. “I continue to support comprehensive programs as best we can,” she said. “There’s grief, trauma and healing that needs to happen; I am willing to try this agreement, with stipulations.”
She enumerated a number of items that needed to be considered including the costs of offering sports, with football being the most expensive. She said Plumas Charter would need to pay a prorated share of all costs. “Attendance requirements must be followed; conduct needs to be abided by all kids,” she added. All of the terms and conditions will be outlined in a memorandum of understanding between the school district and Plumas Charter.
Edlund also spoke to the divisiveness in Indian Valley. “I feel like this is an opportunity for Indian Valley to show that they can come together.” She talked about attending the senior project presentations at Quincy High School earlier that day and visiting with a student who didn’t want to participate, but did so despite being at first angry about it. The student said, “Being angry didn’t make it go away.”
“If we enter this, I hope people in Indian Valley can remember those words,” she said. “Threats, divisive behavior, will not take us where we want to go.” Then she quoted former school board member Dwight Pierson who was fond of saying “It takes a lot of people to build a bridge, and only a couple of people to blow it up.”
Board member JoDee Read said she echoed Edlund’s statement and Joleen Cline said she was ready to vote, but first board members Traci Holt and Dave Keller shared their thoughts.
Holt said she also echoed Edlund’s statement and she also remained committed to K-12 education in Greenville. Holt also mentioned the volume of comments that she had received and said she loved “hearing from the students and what their wishes are,” but some of the adult missives were disheartening.
“There’s a lot of messaging about us coming together. If this moves forward – some of the information that we received and the behaviors … if we’re truly going to come together, we need to do it respectfully,” she said. Ultimately the board wants to do what’s best for the kids, she said in summation.
Dave Keller, who represents the Indian Valley area and coached Greenville High football for many years, addressed the topic. “During this past football season, I was blessed with the opportunity to help out the team at Quincy High School … We were overwhelmed by how welcoming everyone was, as well as Chester High School.” (Some Greenville students played at Quincy High, while others played with Chester High.)
Keller described a football bus trip that took the team through Greenville, during which one of the Greenville players saw the fire’s devastation for the first time. “The Quincy students comforted him, stood up for him and were there for him when he needed it,” he said. “And I’m hoping we see the same kind of emotional integrity and coming togetherness that we’ve heard talked about.”
Keller acknowledged that there were issues when joint play was tried in the past, but he said there are different players, teachers, and parents than there were five or six years ago. He said that he had been inundated with comments – most were for it — but some were still upset over what had happened in the past. He said he trusted staff to put together “an awesome MOU” to help ensure that past issues aren’t repeated.
The board reiterated that it would be a one-year agreement only and then voted unanimously for the multi-school agreement for athletics for the 2022-23 school year between Greenville High School and Plumas Charter School.
In a statement released by Plumas Unified School District, the reasons for this include:
- Significant impacts to the Indian Valley community due to the devastating Dixie Fire
- Opportunities for students to participate in high school athletics
- Anticipated enrollment at Greenville High School
- Community input
This agreement is contingent upon the agreement of a Memorandum of Understanding with Plumas Charter School to include the following areas:
- Behavior/Academic/Attendance Requirements
- Financial cost-sharing
- Human Resources- expectations and processes
- Facilities
- Transportation
- Supervision
- Sports Physicals
- COVID protocols
- Non-precedent-setting, one year only
The school district and Plumas Charter were scheduled to meet May 27 to discuss the MOU, which must be signed by May 31 to meet CIF deadlines.
