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Middletown board splits on Monday night votes
Middletown board members split on two votes at tonight’s meeting — once on the personnel agenda recommendations and once on the athletic department agenda recommendations.
The dissenting board members, the Rev. Greg Tyus and Katie McNeil, declined to elaborate on why they had voted no. Tyus voted against both recommendations, McNeil only voted against the athletic recommendations.
The common denominator on both agendas? New football coach Jason Krause.
Krause put his name in for the position a little late. It wasn’t on a list of applicants that came out a few weeks ago but he was one of the five finalists to replace former Middie Coach Ron Johnson.
The finalists, who were interviewed by four community groups were: Krause; Madison Head Coach Joel Lauer; Hilliard Davidson assistant coach and former Middie Johnson “Chip” Abele; Kenton Head Coach and Athletic Director Mike Mauk; and former NFL player and former head coach at Harmony Community School David Pool.
Of those five finalists, Pool is the only black candidate. There were at least 4-5 additional black applicants in the pool of 50.
Monday, March 14, Tyus said at the board meeting that he had noticed in a series of interviews with the finalists by my colleague Skip Weaver that only one potential coach had mentioned the classroom.
Find the interviews for Krause, Mauk, Pool, Lauer and Abele here.
As far as I can tell from the interviews, Pool is the only one in the interviews who mentioned classroom. Tyus never specified which candidate he met.
Pool is the only one of the candidates who does not hold a teaching certificate in the state of Ohio, according to the Ohio Department of Education.
Superintendent Steve Price announced last Thursday, April 22, that he would recommend Monroe Coach Jason Krause to lead the Middies next school year and to become an intervention specialist at Middletown High School.
Two board members, Tyus and John Sauter, told me later that night they hadn’t been told of the decision when I contacted them. The other board members did not return call for comment.
On Friday, Bishop Rudy Pringle, the long-time chaplain of Middletown High School’s football team, announced his intention to resign from that position and all other involvement with the district’s activities and athletics.
So that’s where we were at the start of Middletown’s meeting last night. At 7 p.m. the board went into executive session and reconvened the meeting at about 7:50 p.m.
When the meeting came to the personnel portion of the agenda, the board took the entire personnel agenda, including the Addendum A that had Krause’s intervention specialist position on it, as one item and voted 4-1 to approve the entire agenda. Board President the Rev. Greg Tyus voted against the personnel items.
Last night’s personnel agenda had a lot on it because it is April and boards typically vote on teacher contracts for the next year at this time. The addendum for Krause was included in that, but Tyus could have been voting against anything on that agenda. He wouldn’t elaborate on his reasons.
After that the board voted on a separate personnel item for Amanda physical education teacher Cindy Sauter, who is married to board member John Sauter. Sauter abstained and the item was approved 4-0.
Then the board came to the athletic department agenda. This agenda had three items on in total, one from the advance agenda and two from an addendum. The advance agenda had a differential pay for Softball Assistant Emily Donner. The addendum had the head football coach and weight lifting coordinator supplemental contracts for Krause.
The board voted 3-2 on those items as one action. Tyus and Board Member Katie McNeil voted against the action.
McNeil said she cast her “no” vote for “a lot of reasons,” but didn’t want to elaborate last night. Tyus said he voted no against both items because
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