Board officially eliminates GW athletics director position
Traci White
Reid Taylor, athletics director at George Washington High School, speaks on his cell phone in his office at the school on May 8.
AND JASON WOLF
Register & Bee staff writers
Published: June 22, 2009
Updated: June 23, 2009
The Danville School Board voted to officially eliminate the athletics director position at George Washington High School at its monthly work session Friday morning, the school district announced in a news release Monday.
The athletics director position is one of 33 school district jobs being eliminated as part of the school board’s effort to combat a nearly $5 million deficit in the district’s budget for next year. But the decision leaves GW, with nearly 1,600 students and 35 varsity and junior varsity teams, as the only high school of its size in the state without an athletics director. The AD’s responsibilities will be absorbed “by one or more of the assistant principals,” according to the release.
Seventeen out of 312 high schools in the state have athletics directors who also hold the title of assistant principal and who are responsible for varying additional duties that the combined role entails, according to Virginia High School League records. But only three of the state’s Group AAA schools — the largest classification by the VHSL and a designation that applies to GW — follow this model.
Danville Public Schools Superintendent Sue Davis initially told Danville City Council on May 5 that the responsibilities associated with running GW’s athletics department would be divided among the high school’s five administrators. Davis then told the Danville Register & Bee on May 8 that those duties would be assigned to one person — GW assistant principal Withers Jackson — who she said would not receive the title of athletics director.
Davis was not available to comment Monday, according to her secretary, who said that all questions should be referred to Rev. George Wilson, the chairman of the school board.
Wilson could not be reached for comment.
Other board members remained quiet on the issue, as well.
“It’s a personnel issue. I’m not going to talk about it,” school board vice chairman Rebecca Bolton said Monday.
“We’ve specified that Rev. Wilson will speak for the board on this issue,” board member Ed Polhamus said.
Danville School Board members also declined to comment after discussing the district’s planned elimination of the athletics director position in a session closed to the public June 2 at the school board office.
Reid Taylor, a GW graduate and the school’s athletics director for the last six years, took part in that closed-door meeting and said Monday that he had given the board “75 pages of documentation about why I think doing away with the athletics director position has nothing to do with the (district’s plans for a) reduction in force.” Taylor said those documents included e-mails from the superintendent and the school’s principal, Chris Carter, who previously expressed his desire not to comment on the issue.
Taylor wouldn’t discuss specifics about why the superintendent and principal might want him removed from the AD role.
“This move saved (the school district) a portion of the current AD position salary plus a full new-teacher salary and the associated fringe benefit costs,” according to the district’s news release.
Taylor, who has tenure, has been offered a position as a physical education instructor at the high school at an annual salary of approximately $15,000 less than he was receiving as the full-time AD.
Taylor said he has tentatively accepted the teaching position, but is unsure if he will actually fulfill that decision.
“I took it a month ago because I didn’t want to overreact and I wanted to weigh my options,” Taylor said Monday. “I’m 62. I’ve got 39 years in teaching. Teaching people what foot to go off of for a layup — that’s a young man’s job.”
Contact Amos at or (434) 791-7983.
Contact Wolf at or (434) 791-7996.
Advertisement
Reader Reactions
I agree with JoeC 110%. Schools need to put emphasis on academics. I mean even Mr Taylor sees how things are. He is saying that he has aged out of being able to even Teach Athletics. Is that all that he is qualified to teach? It would be a shame for a man his age to lose his job. Find something for him to do until retirement. Schools waste far too much money and time on sports anyway.There just aren’t that many jobs out there for athletes. Let people start businesses teaching sports and let the schools teach academics. Save the tax payers a dollar.
Pittsylvania County is now accepting student transfer applications.
NICE move, about time…...now get rid of Carter and start over and maybe GW can come up to the standards it should be at.
The school board supporting the elimination of the position just underscores how ignorant they really are about these matters. Again another black eye for DPS. Lets put them all out next election. If they are so foolish as to not realize this was a personal vendetta then they do not deserve to be on the board. They are truely clueless about what is going on in the schools. This decision will come back to haunt them next year. When the first team misses a scheduled game, allows ineligible players on the team, unknowingly breaks a VHSL rule, fails to get proper paperwork in on time, or no refs show up for a game who will be blamed? Danville, wake up. Your schools have neen hijacked by a power hungry superintendent and an incompetent school board. It is time you did something about both.
Great move. Now if we could just get rid of the untouchable “School Board” members. At least a dog wasn’t killed, Michael Vick will be glad of that.
joec sound like a looser whos jelous cause he cant play ball. lol.
Hey, it suits this Danville taxpayer just fine. Now, let’s take the next step and remove all athletics (but not physical education) from the public schools.
Athletics just perpetuates the “jock culture”, and falsely encourages some (mostly poor) youth that they can play professional sports and become rich. Choosing this primrose path in lieu of a more conventional, academic scholarly career has left many young men poorly educated and without a professional sports contract. Sure, some lucky and extremely talented youth move on to lucrative sports careers. Some people who play the lotto wins tens of millions of dollars too, but in the wake of each success are millions of people with dashed hopes and depleted bank accounts. Substitute “no education” for “depleted ban accounts” and you just described the lure of professional sports.
And don’t get me started on sports scholarships. While literal geniuses put themselves through engineering or science programs by working at McDonald’s, athletes barely pass the Liberal Arts program just because they can throw/hit/catch a ball, and they get a free ride for it.
It’s high time we put less emphasis on athletics and more emphasis on academics in our public schools. If kids want to play sports, let them do it on their own dime and on their own time - at a facility NOT owned by the Danville school system. As a society, we’d be far better off. And this move is a good first step.
Well in a few years the Danville School Board will have egg on their faces. The current administration will have moved on. Their resumes will highlight the savings of the elimination of the Athletic Director position. They will obtain yet other faceless white collar job making twice what this AD position pays. Touting the elimination of jobs, given the state of our economy, will eventually become in poor taste. The student athletes at GWHS will be the ones who suffer while a few board members pad their resumes and wallets. Board members this decision is just another slap in the face to families in Danville. I would love to see the board members faces when the citizens in Danville realize this decision has forced our athletic programs traditions into obscurity.
Advertisement