RISON - The Cleveland County School Board approved Superintendent Craig Dupuy's recommendation Monday night to create a new position for an athletics, transportation and maintenance director. The motion was only to create the position, and did not include anyone to fill the job.
In addition, the school board also approved a motion to turn over ownership of the playground area behind Kingsland School to the City of Kingsland so it can be used as a city park, thereby making it eligible for grants.
After long-time Rison High School athletic director and head football coach Clay Totty resigned in December to become head coach at Wynne, Dupuy said he would like to separate the athletic director's position from any active coach on campus.
Since Totty's retirement, Dupuy said High School Principal Davy King has been handling the athletic director duties. Those duties included overseeing all the coaches, helping get officials for games and scheduling, among other things.
In addition, King also serves district's transportation director, which is responsible for overseeing the school buses, bus drivers, routes, etc.
Dupuy said his decision to recommend creating the new athletics, maintenance and transportation director's position is linked to the changing responsibilities principals will have under the new Arkansas LEARNS plan that was signed into law last week. He said the new position would be an administrative position like a principal since they person would have to have certain certifications to fulfill some of the personnel duties associated with the job.
In addition to the duties affiliated with athletics, transportation and maintenance, Dupuy said the new position will also be responsible for overseeing school safety. He said school safety is one of the priorities under the new LEARNS act and each school district must now conduct an safety assessment every semester.
With principals taking on more...
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