Board officially eliminates GW athletics director position

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 camos@registerbee.com or (434) 791-7983.

Contact Wolf at jwolf@registerbee.com or (434) 791-7996.