They came, they saw and some of them spoke out — almost unanimously in favor of a high school volleyball coach who walked away from one of the plum jobs in Texas high school athletics after only a single season.
The Amarillo Independent School District Board of Trustees held its first meeting of 2019. It convened amid a good bit of community angst over the resignation of Kori Clements as head coach of the Amarillo High School Sandies girls volleyball team.
Board president F. Scott Flow, taking note of the standing-room-only crowd jammed into the board meeting room, flip-flopped the board agenda and allowed public comment to lead off the meeting.
Clements quit, citing a lack of school board and administration support for her in the face of what she has called parental interference. Clements said the parent had harassed her regarding the playing time the parent’s daughter was getting — or not getting — during Sandies’ volleyball matches.
AISD has not commented on the matter, standing behind its policy of reticence regarding personnel matters. That didn’t stem the criticism from school district residents, who aimed much of their comments in the direction of a school board trustee, who allegedly is the parent who hassled and harassed Clements.
All the trustees were present at tonight’s meeting.
A couple of AISD residents called for a full investigation into the trustee’s behavior. One of them called for her resignation from the board. Several of the residents speaking out tonight noted that coaches and classroom educators deserve the full support of the administration and trustees, while alleging that Clements was denied that support, prompting her to resign in the public and angry manner that she did.
It’s bad enough that a parent would interfere with a coach doing his or her job. That such interference allegedly is coming from an elected member of the school district’s governing body crosses the line into shameful.
Some of those who spoke to the board professed to be Amarillo High grads. One man said he is “ashamed” of his school over the resignation, not to mention the lack of support given to a coach who herself was a product of the storied Amarillo High volleyball program. Another speaker, a member of the Amarillo HS volleyball team, asked the board to “not accept” her coach’s resignation.
What now? Well, I don’t have a dog in this fight, given that I no longer live in the Panhandle. Given that my wife and I had returned to Amarillo on personal business, I felt pulled to the board meeting tonight to listen for myself.
I’ll offer this suggestion just as someone with a forum to offer an opinion or two: The AISD board needs to talk privately and candidly among themselves about what has transpired. It needs to find a way to address this matter fully. Its insistence on remaining silent because of a policy requirement isn’t going to assuage the concerns board members heard from a roomful of disheartened constituents.
I cannot say this absolute certainty, but I am quite certain that the folks crammed into that meeting room spoke volumes for thousands of other constituents who weren’t there.
Amarillo ISD, you have a problem that needs immediate attention.